Dec 2007
AMU Makes Own Pile, Steps In
Tue, Dec11, 2007 - Category: University
Late last week, Ave Maria University broke ground to
build a new dormatory. According to the Naples Daily News:
"Upon completion, the school will provide housing for approximately 600 undergraduates, a university release said."
But wait. I thought that AMU already had "over 600 students" on campus? Several days ago, AveWatch showed you excerpts from fundraising letters sent to donors this past fall, with gems like:
AMU priest Fr. Matthew Lamb (bold added) -
"With a record of over 600 students this year on our permanent campus in the town of Ave Maria, we are on the right track."
So, if AMU already has "over 600" that are "on" campus and "in the town", where are they housing them? How can their new housing target for next year be "approximately 600"?
Given AMU's track record for losing students during the year, their faltering accreditation, and their shaddy dealings, one wonders if the new dorm is needed for actual enrollment figures or if they simply want to show turned dirt for their upcoming initial SACS accreditation evaluation.
AMU Project Director Don Schotenboer recently assumed a vice president post at a local consulting group.
"Upon completion, the school will provide housing for approximately 600 undergraduates, a university release said."
But wait. I thought that AMU already had "over 600 students" on campus? Several days ago, AveWatch showed you excerpts from fundraising letters sent to donors this past fall, with gems like:
AMU priest Fr. Matthew Lamb (bold added) -
"With a record of over 600 students this year on our permanent campus in the town of Ave Maria, we are on the right track."
So, if AMU already has "over 600" that are "on" campus and "in the town", where are they housing them? How can their new housing target for next year be "approximately 600"?
Given AMU's track record for losing students during the year, their faltering accreditation, and their shaddy dealings, one wonders if the new dorm is needed for actual enrollment figures or if they simply want to show turned dirt for their upcoming initial SACS accreditation evaluation.
AMU Project Director Don Schotenboer recently assumed a vice president post at a local consulting group.
Project Director Takes New Post
Mon, Dec10, 2007 - Category: Town
South Florida's News-Press.com is reporting today that Don
Schrotenboer, the director of project
development for Tom Monaghan's real estate
development Ave Maria Town, has been named vice
president of a local real estate consulting
group. Schrotenboer had been with Monaghan for
the past six years as project manager for Ave
Maria University. Many attributed the
development's rapid construction progress to
Schroetenboer's leadership. IRS-990 returns for
the non-profit Ave Maria University, Inc. show
Schrotenboer's salary at $275,000 (2003).
Liturgical Meltdown Ahead?
Mon, Dec10, 2007 - Category: University
Diocese of Venice, take note -
AveWatch readers will recall that the first chairperson of Ave Maria University's Department of Sacred Music resigned last year due, in large part, to ongoing interference by lawyer-President Nick Healy in the department's liturgical music. Despite its short life and frequent claims to being "authentically" or "unabashedly" Catholic, AMU already has a history of intolerance for certain traditionalist forms and practices, and has acted in ways that appear to misappropriate liturgical decisions to be made by priests or the local bishop to, instead, lay university administrators (see series here).
AveWatch recently received unconfirmed, but reliable, reports that the new head of AMU's music department is now "subject to being fired for insubordination for having ignored Nick Healy's directive that sacred music in Latin is only to be sung at the 8AM Sunday Mass, and is not to be sung at any other Sunday Masses. In other words, Healy has threatened the head of the Catholic university's sacred music department with termination for having Latin sacred music at too many Masses."
Undoubtedly, this would be quite a shock to AMU's prospective donors, all of whom are regularly treated to fundraising letters that tout how traditional, conservative, and "authentic" Ave Maria's Catholicism is.
Sources have explained the behavior of AMU's lawyer-President this way - "... it certainly fits in perfectly with Healy's ongoing and obsessive war against "traditional" Catholic music and liturgy, a war which seems to have three "generals", Healy, his wife Jane, and their imported "healing" priest Fr. McAlear". Multiple sources at AMU report that there have been ongoing battles between students and staff over Communion rail kneelers in the temporary campus chapel - students bring them in, staff take them out. Finally, AW is told, the kneelers were moved by staff to an undisclosed location because "Healy is adamant that the kneeling tradition at AMU is to be broken".
Last month, Roger McCaffery, a former AMU employee and founder of Roman Catholic Books, granted a blog interview. When asked about Ave Maria, McCaffery pulled no punches (excerpt) -
"Its [AMU's] leaders began treating the campus Masses as a marketing device. Now they plan to “mainstream” the university. They’re banning the Old Latin Mass. Over a hundred students have asked for it. The chaplain and the president are said to be carefully examining and discussing the request, as if dealing with a radioactive moon rock. They regulate the “ordinary form” in Latin too. They cut that back, moved it from 10am to 8am on Sundays so most students don’t go. How can Catholics who talk about tradition all the time mistreat those who love their tradition? Simple: they have re-written what “tradition” means. You can then imagine how Pope Benedict’s emphatic restoration of the Old Mass in July was received."
The use of Mass as a marketing device is confirmed by AMU's recent heavy use of campus priests to author, send, and receive fundraising letters coupled with mass requests. Readers have complained to AveWatch that Ave Maria's flippant use of 11 sacred traditional direct references to the Blessed Virgin Mary (i.e. "Our Lady of Good Counsel", "Our Lady of Perpetual Help") to name levels of cash gifts is both tacky and disrespectful.
McCaffery goes on to nail the lay administration of Nick Healy over matters liturgical and diocesan (excerpt):
"Healy has even cut his [Fr. Fessio's] weekday Latin Masses in the “ordinary form” from three to two. In my opinion Fessio should ignore that dictate, say Mass exactly as is his priestly prerogative, challenge the chaplain [who is] from [the Diocese of] Rockford and the Pizza magnate---and take the case directly to the Vatican if necessary, sooner the better. There is a huge principle at stake. The University has no right whatsoever to restrict his public Latin Masses in whatever Missal the Church permits. Nor does it even have the right to spurn student wishes about Latin liturgy. None whatsoever. The chaplain is not even from the diocese! The university is run by laymen! So, this is a test case. Fessio personifies, and always has at AMU, an issue much bigger than he. It is a liturgical issue directly involving Church authorities when a chaplain who draws a paycheck from a lay board restricts another priest or when a layman attempts to dictate policy about Mass. A university, or for that matter an old folks home, which restricts, in any way, celebration of the new or old form in the sacred language of the Church, must be corrected."
Will the Bishop of Venice rein in the misappropriation of laymen like Healy and Monaghan? Monaghan's giant oratory, in the center of his real estate development, may be a factor in this, given that the Bishop has yet to approve the structure for mass. Healy hasn't delivered on accreditation, and Monaghan hasn't delivered on the centerpiece of his development, the oratory. A recent issue of Conde Nast said "... James Daly, just bought a $337,000 home, which he and his wife intend to use for vacations, on Ave Maria Boulevard, near the oratory. 'We're Catholics, we're serious about our faith, and we like the idea of the church being there..' " Well, Mr. Daly, it isn't a "church" until the Bishop says it is... and that has yet to happen. Monaghan will have his hands full between townspeople and sales partners (Pulte, Baron Collier) if the oratory isn't "delivering" on mass soon.
How ironic it is that the two most fundamental aspects of Monaghan and Healy's projects - accreditation and Magisterial approval - have flopped to date.
AveWatch readers will recall that the first chairperson of Ave Maria University's Department of Sacred Music resigned last year due, in large part, to ongoing interference by lawyer-President Nick Healy in the department's liturgical music. Despite its short life and frequent claims to being "authentically" or "unabashedly" Catholic, AMU already has a history of intolerance for certain traditionalist forms and practices, and has acted in ways that appear to misappropriate liturgical decisions to be made by priests or the local bishop to, instead, lay university administrators (see series here).
AveWatch recently received unconfirmed, but reliable, reports that the new head of AMU's music department is now "subject to being fired for insubordination for having ignored Nick Healy's directive that sacred music in Latin is only to be sung at the 8AM Sunday Mass, and is not to be sung at any other Sunday Masses. In other words, Healy has threatened the head of the Catholic university's sacred music department with termination for having Latin sacred music at too many Masses."
Undoubtedly, this would be quite a shock to AMU's prospective donors, all of whom are regularly treated to fundraising letters that tout how traditional, conservative, and "authentic" Ave Maria's Catholicism is.
Sources have explained the behavior of AMU's lawyer-President this way - "... it certainly fits in perfectly with Healy's ongoing and obsessive war against "traditional" Catholic music and liturgy, a war which seems to have three "generals", Healy, his wife Jane, and their imported "healing" priest Fr. McAlear". Multiple sources at AMU report that there have been ongoing battles between students and staff over Communion rail kneelers in the temporary campus chapel - students bring them in, staff take them out. Finally, AW is told, the kneelers were moved by staff to an undisclosed location because "Healy is adamant that the kneeling tradition at AMU is to be broken".
Last month, Roger McCaffery, a former AMU employee and founder of Roman Catholic Books, granted a blog interview. When asked about Ave Maria, McCaffery pulled no punches (excerpt) -
"Its [AMU's] leaders began treating the campus Masses as a marketing device. Now they plan to “mainstream” the university. They’re banning the Old Latin Mass. Over a hundred students have asked for it. The chaplain and the president are said to be carefully examining and discussing the request, as if dealing with a radioactive moon rock. They regulate the “ordinary form” in Latin too. They cut that back, moved it from 10am to 8am on Sundays so most students don’t go. How can Catholics who talk about tradition all the time mistreat those who love their tradition? Simple: they have re-written what “tradition” means. You can then imagine how Pope Benedict’s emphatic restoration of the Old Mass in July was received."
The use of Mass as a marketing device is confirmed by AMU's recent heavy use of campus priests to author, send, and receive fundraising letters coupled with mass requests. Readers have complained to AveWatch that Ave Maria's flippant use of 11 sacred traditional direct references to the Blessed Virgin Mary (i.e. "Our Lady of Good Counsel", "Our Lady of Perpetual Help") to name levels of cash gifts is both tacky and disrespectful.
McCaffery goes on to nail the lay administration of Nick Healy over matters liturgical and diocesan (excerpt):
"Healy has even cut his [Fr. Fessio's] weekday Latin Masses in the “ordinary form” from three to two. In my opinion Fessio should ignore that dictate, say Mass exactly as is his priestly prerogative, challenge the chaplain [who is] from [the Diocese of] Rockford and the Pizza magnate---and take the case directly to the Vatican if necessary, sooner the better. There is a huge principle at stake. The University has no right whatsoever to restrict his public Latin Masses in whatever Missal the Church permits. Nor does it even have the right to spurn student wishes about Latin liturgy. None whatsoever. The chaplain is not even from the diocese! The university is run by laymen! So, this is a test case. Fessio personifies, and always has at AMU, an issue much bigger than he. It is a liturgical issue directly involving Church authorities when a chaplain who draws a paycheck from a lay board restricts another priest or when a layman attempts to dictate policy about Mass. A university, or for that matter an old folks home, which restricts, in any way, celebration of the new or old form in the sacred language of the Church, must be corrected."
Will the Bishop of Venice rein in the misappropriation of laymen like Healy and Monaghan? Monaghan's giant oratory, in the center of his real estate development, may be a factor in this, given that the Bishop has yet to approve the structure for mass. Healy hasn't delivered on accreditation, and Monaghan hasn't delivered on the centerpiece of his development, the oratory. A recent issue of Conde Nast said "... James Daly, just bought a $337,000 home, which he and his wife intend to use for vacations, on Ave Maria Boulevard, near the oratory. 'We're Catholics, we're serious about our faith, and we like the idea of the church being there..' " Well, Mr. Daly, it isn't a "church" until the Bishop says it is... and that has yet to happen. Monaghan will have his hands full between townspeople and sales partners (Pulte, Baron Collier) if the oratory isn't "delivering" on mass soon.
How ironic it is that the two most fundamental aspects of Monaghan and Healy's projects - accreditation and Magisterial approval - have flopped to date.
Number Games with AMU Donors
Thu, Dec06, 2007 - Category: University
Consider the following excerpts.
Bold added for emphasis -
Fundraising letter from AMU VP Carole Carpenter, Sept. 14, 2007:
"Now, on August 27 of 2007, we have moved into this wonderful new university which is located in Ave Maria Florida. With the addition of 187 new students, enrollment is now at a record 601 students who are witnesses to a miracle of the faith of many."
Fundraising letter from AMU lawyer-President Nicholas Healy, Sept. 14, 2007:
"We welcomed a record 601 students at our Opening ceremony on August 27!"
Fundraising letter from AMU priest Fr. Matthew Lamb, Oct. 15, 2007:
"With a record of over 600 students this year on our permanent campus in the town of Ave Maria, we are on the right track."
Compare the aforementioned to the following excerpt from yesterday's Naples Daily News -
"According to August student enrollment statistics, there are 447 degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students on campus and 147 students enrolled in the school’s distance learning master’s program."
The problem:
1) The NDN numbers total 594, not 601. How much bolder it is to say "over 600", rather than even "600", let alone "almost 600".
2) NDN says that there are 447 "students on campus". Fr. Lamb told donors that there are over 600 students "on our permanent campus" and "in the town of Ave Maria". He appears to be counting distance learning students in AMU's Institute for Pastoral Theology as "on" campus and "in" the town. The Institute runs out of Kansas City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and St. Louis, among other cities. Healy told donors that 601 students were welcomed "at our Opening ceremony", which was also in August, the same month that the NDN cites its statistics. Is Healy suggesting that the distance learning students flew to south Florida to be "at our Opening ceremony"?
Lamb's letter may be particularly problematic. The context of his note to donors creates the appearance that the "over 600" are traditional young full-time residential degree-seeking students. Excepts from Lamb's fundraising letter (bold added):
"We have to teach the teachers of the next generation in the seminaries, colleges, and universities. If we don't, we will lose the next generation of Catholics to the dissenting falsehoods currently masquerading as Catholic scholarship in higher education."
"But we need to increase this number [the over 600]... who will be the next generation of parents, leaders, and teachers."
To AveWatch, this all appears to be a lawyerly attempt to make the number of traditional on-campus students to appear 34% greater than actual to propsective donors.
Even after being forced to pay $259,000 to the federal Department of Education for being caught in a financial aid sleight of hand that inflated, and benefited, Ave Maria's numbers, AMU administrators persist in their tactics. Other sleight of hand tactics were successful, such as AMU's early deceptive use of the .edu domain name in apparent violation of Department of Commerce rules.
If this recent use of the phrase "over 600" is an attempt to inflate appearances for donors, it would not be the first time that Monaghan has employed such a technique. Ave Maria used a scheme earlier this year to inflate the number of people who appeared to be interested in Monaghan's for-profit Ave Maria Town real estate development (see the AveWatch report "Let's Pad the Numbers"). Monaghan, by his own admission, used deceptive inflation when Ave Maria College started in Michigan:
Excerpt from Tom Monaghan's 2003 address to NAPCIS:
"... I don't know how many full-time students we had the first year ... I think it was 10 or 12 [students], and that's questionable because we were taking everybody and anybody off the street and almost had to pay 'em to come. But, we got started! That's the point - we got started. And we had some of our employees over at Domino Farms in the Foundation take classes in our cafeteria just so we could get our numbers up. They came over and gave a class in theology and philosophy once a week. I took one of the classes in philosophy just to help get the numbers up so we could say that we have 25 or so students that first year."
For as much as Ave Maria fundraising letters complain about the "authenticity" of other Catholic universities, it would be difficult to imagine Notre Dame or Georgetown having so little integtrity on such a straight-forward issue as enrollment.
Fundraising letter from AMU VP Carole Carpenter, Sept. 14, 2007:
"Now, on August 27 of 2007, we have moved into this wonderful new university which is located in Ave Maria Florida. With the addition of 187 new students, enrollment is now at a record 601 students who are witnesses to a miracle of the faith of many."
Fundraising letter from AMU lawyer-President Nicholas Healy, Sept. 14, 2007:
"We welcomed a record 601 students at our Opening ceremony on August 27!"
Fundraising letter from AMU priest Fr. Matthew Lamb, Oct. 15, 2007:
"With a record of over 600 students this year on our permanent campus in the town of Ave Maria, we are on the right track."
Compare the aforementioned to the following excerpt from yesterday's Naples Daily News -
"According to August student enrollment statistics, there are 447 degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students on campus and 147 students enrolled in the school’s distance learning master’s program."
The problem:
1) The NDN numbers total 594, not 601. How much bolder it is to say "over 600", rather than even "600", let alone "almost 600".
2) NDN says that there are 447 "students on campus". Fr. Lamb told donors that there are over 600 students "on our permanent campus" and "in the town of Ave Maria". He appears to be counting distance learning students in AMU's Institute for Pastoral Theology as "on" campus and "in" the town. The Institute runs out of Kansas City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and St. Louis, among other cities. Healy told donors that 601 students were welcomed "at our Opening ceremony", which was also in August, the same month that the NDN cites its statistics. Is Healy suggesting that the distance learning students flew to south Florida to be "at our Opening ceremony"?
Lamb's letter may be particularly problematic. The context of his note to donors creates the appearance that the "over 600" are traditional young full-time residential degree-seeking students. Excepts from Lamb's fundraising letter (bold added):
"We have to teach the teachers of the next generation in the seminaries, colleges, and universities. If we don't, we will lose the next generation of Catholics to the dissenting falsehoods currently masquerading as Catholic scholarship in higher education."
"But we need to increase this number [the over 600]... who will be the next generation of parents, leaders, and teachers."
To AveWatch, this all appears to be a lawyerly attempt to make the number of traditional on-campus students to appear 34% greater than actual to propsective donors.
Even after being forced to pay $259,000 to the federal Department of Education for being caught in a financial aid sleight of hand that inflated, and benefited, Ave Maria's numbers, AMU administrators persist in their tactics. Other sleight of hand tactics were successful, such as AMU's early deceptive use of the .edu domain name in apparent violation of Department of Commerce rules.
If this recent use of the phrase "over 600" is an attempt to inflate appearances for donors, it would not be the first time that Monaghan has employed such a technique. Ave Maria used a scheme earlier this year to inflate the number of people who appeared to be interested in Monaghan's for-profit Ave Maria Town real estate development (see the AveWatch report "Let's Pad the Numbers"). Monaghan, by his own admission, used deceptive inflation when Ave Maria College started in Michigan:
Excerpt from Tom Monaghan's 2003 address to NAPCIS:
"... I don't know how many full-time students we had the first year ... I think it was 10 or 12 [students], and that's questionable because we were taking everybody and anybody off the street and almost had to pay 'em to come. But, we got started! That's the point - we got started. And we had some of our employees over at Domino Farms in the Foundation take classes in our cafeteria just so we could get our numbers up. They came over and gave a class in theology and philosophy once a week. I took one of the classes in philosophy just to help get the numbers up so we could say that we have 25 or so students that first year."
For as much as Ave Maria fundraising letters complain about the "authenticity" of other Catholic universities, it would be difficult to imagine Notre Dame or Georgetown having so little integtrity on such a straight-forward issue as enrollment.
AMU Accreditation: What Me Worry?
Thu, Dec06, 2007 - Category: University
Have you ever seen a person stumble and then pretend
that he intended to stumble? It looks silly,
right?
Ave Maria University, if anything, is a hoot. Yesterday, the Naples Daily News ran a story whose title says it all - "Ave Maria not worried about losing federal funding amid uncertainty over accreditor's status". It is hardly a coincidence that this article appears only days after another story on AMU's latest inability to gain permanent accreditation. But, in AMU's attempt to pretend that it isn't stumbling, parents and students should ask what it says of administrators who are "not worried".
AveWatch has been a leader in covering AMU's accreditation, serving as a journalistic source to various new agencies. Be sure to read our extensive coverage here. Anyone who has followed AALE, the AMU accrediting agency in question, knows that they have been in trouble with the federal Department of Education for over 6 years, since 2001. The fact that AMU put its eggs into AALE's basket for so long, and that AMU has had such lengthy difficulty with accreditation, speaks much of its amateurish administration and a University lawyer-President preoccupied with building-up the real estate development owned by his client, AMU Chancellor Tom Monaghan. In AMU's typical style of using hubris as the best technique to cover for its problems, yesterday's NDN article says "In some ways, the school’s potential accreditation void is the result of its large ambition." This is the same "ambition" that is destroying the academic community at Michigan's Ave Maria School of Law. For all its "ambition", AMU could not earn full accreditation from a strongly conservative accreditor that has some of the least restrictive standards among accrediting agencies. How much better it is for the Healy-Monaghan administration to blame "ambition" for poor stewardship in "smaller" things... to blame "ambition" for valuing communities of steel and concrete above communities of flesh and mind.
The most interesting tidbit in the NDN article is additional insight into the firing of AMU's high-profile Fr. Joseph Fessio:
"Last year, then-Provost the Rev. Joseph Fessio referred to the school’s lack of final accreditation as contributing negatively to the school’s ability to attract students. But [AMU VP] Sites said tying enrollment figures to accreditation status was a "fallacious idea."
AveWatch readers will recall that we released a story on March 9, 2007 titled "AMU's Sole Accreditor in Big Trouble". Fessio was fired as Provost on March 21. It may be that the issue of how accreditation impacts enrollment was the "irreconcilable difference over administrative policies and practice" that was cited by AMU officials as the basis for Fessio's firing. In November 2006, prior to Fessio's booting, AveWatch reported on how Fessio was telling donors that lack of accreditation was part of AMU's "crisis".
According to the article, AMU's VP John "Jack" Sites went on to say, "We’re no longer in the first year... Everyone knows who we are and what we’re about." "
Indeed, we know who Ave Maria is and what the Ave Maria schools are about.
Ave Maria University, if anything, is a hoot. Yesterday, the Naples Daily News ran a story whose title says it all - "Ave Maria not worried about losing federal funding amid uncertainty over accreditor's status". It is hardly a coincidence that this article appears only days after another story on AMU's latest inability to gain permanent accreditation. But, in AMU's attempt to pretend that it isn't stumbling, parents and students should ask what it says of administrators who are "not worried".
AveWatch has been a leader in covering AMU's accreditation, serving as a journalistic source to various new agencies. Be sure to read our extensive coverage here. Anyone who has followed AALE, the AMU accrediting agency in question, knows that they have been in trouble with the federal Department of Education for over 6 years, since 2001. The fact that AMU put its eggs into AALE's basket for so long, and that AMU has had such lengthy difficulty with accreditation, speaks much of its amateurish administration and a University lawyer-President preoccupied with building-up the real estate development owned by his client, AMU Chancellor Tom Monaghan. In AMU's typical style of using hubris as the best technique to cover for its problems, yesterday's NDN article says "In some ways, the school’s potential accreditation void is the result of its large ambition." This is the same "ambition" that is destroying the academic community at Michigan's Ave Maria School of Law. For all its "ambition", AMU could not earn full accreditation from a strongly conservative accreditor that has some of the least restrictive standards among accrediting agencies. How much better it is for the Healy-Monaghan administration to blame "ambition" for poor stewardship in "smaller" things... to blame "ambition" for valuing communities of steel and concrete above communities of flesh and mind.
The most interesting tidbit in the NDN article is additional insight into the firing of AMU's high-profile Fr. Joseph Fessio:
"Last year, then-Provost the Rev. Joseph Fessio referred to the school’s lack of final accreditation as contributing negatively to the school’s ability to attract students. But [AMU VP] Sites said tying enrollment figures to accreditation status was a "fallacious idea."
AveWatch readers will recall that we released a story on March 9, 2007 titled "AMU's Sole Accreditor in Big Trouble". Fessio was fired as Provost on March 21. It may be that the issue of how accreditation impacts enrollment was the "irreconcilable difference over administrative policies and practice" that was cited by AMU officials as the basis for Fessio's firing. In November 2006, prior to Fessio's booting, AveWatch reported on how Fessio was telling donors that lack of accreditation was part of AMU's "crisis".
According to the article, AMU's VP John "Jack" Sites went on to say, "We’re no longer in the first year... Everyone knows who we are and what we’re about." "
Indeed, we know who Ave Maria is and what the Ave Maria schools are about.
Sales, and Partnerships, Disappoint
Mon, Dec03, 2007 - Category: Town
Tom Monaghan runs in two circles - conservative
Catholics and wealthy businessmen. To date, the
questions and concerns have come from the former, not
the later. But, based on this month's issue of
Conde Nast, the later is also
starting to wonder. The article opens:
"The soil of southwest Florida is loose and sandy, and it absorbs rich men's fortunes as readily as the summer rains."
The article said that there have been "just 73 completed home sales - a fraction of the 600 he [Monaghan] expected by the end of the year". But it may be worse than just 73. How many of those sales were made by Monaghan himself via his Ave Maria University?
There are signs that Monaghan's relationship with his business partners (Barron Collier Co. and Pulte) is beginning to strain. According to the article:
"I wonder sometimes whether they don't treat this as if it's the same as every other development they do," Monaghan says of his secular partners. "I think if they put a lot of money into marketing to the general population, they might be wasting a lot of it."
AMU's high-profile theologian Fr. Fessio dogpiles on BCC-Pulte:
"Since last winter, television commercials and billboards around Naples have been advertising the development with the slogan "Every family, every lifestyle, every dream." "They're trying to disguise it," says the Reverend Joseph Fessio, a priest and confidant of Pope Benedict XVI's who is Ave Maria University's theologian-in-residence. "Every lifestyle? That's kind of a code word."
For Ave Maria School of Law - still slated to move from its established home in Michigan to Monaghan's south Florida real estate development - those "disappointing" home sales vividly question the wisdom of chaining a school's financial stability and success to a startup business venture in a cyclical market.
"The soil of southwest Florida is loose and sandy, and it absorbs rich men's fortunes as readily as the summer rains."
The article said that there have been "just 73 completed home sales - a fraction of the 600 he [Monaghan] expected by the end of the year". But it may be worse than just 73. How many of those sales were made by Monaghan himself via his Ave Maria University?
There are signs that Monaghan's relationship with his business partners (Barron Collier Co. and Pulte) is beginning to strain. According to the article:
"I wonder sometimes whether they don't treat this as if it's the same as every other development they do," Monaghan says of his secular partners. "I think if they put a lot of money into marketing to the general population, they might be wasting a lot of it."
AMU's high-profile theologian Fr. Fessio dogpiles on BCC-Pulte:
"Since last winter, television commercials and billboards around Naples have been advertising the development with the slogan "Every family, every lifestyle, every dream." "They're trying to disguise it," says the Reverend Joseph Fessio, a priest and confidant of Pope Benedict XVI's who is Ave Maria University's theologian-in-residence. "Every lifestyle? That's kind of a code word."
For Ave Maria School of Law - still slated to move from its established home in Michigan to Monaghan's south Florida real estate development - those "disappointing" home sales vividly question the wisdom of chaining a school's financial stability and success to a startup business venture in a cyclical market.