If a new town was being built from scratch near you, what for-profit business ventures would you like to own/manage? Maybe a bank for "small businesses and individual real estate investors"? [Yesterday, AveWatch reported on the new bank run by Tom Monaghan and Paul Roney.] How about land sales? Utilities? Road & construction materials? Housing? Tom Monaghan & his CFO Paul Roney have all of those covered in south Florida with their for-profit businesses.

Wasn't this supposed to be about starting a Catholic university?More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest

Over one year ago, Naples News reported that Tom Monaghan was interested in creating his own bank in the Naples area. Since then, the project has proceeded silently... until now.

Late last week, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation confirmed for AveWatch that a denovo bank application for "Shamrock Bank of Florida" was accepted three weeks ago bearing the names of Tom Monaghan and his CFO for all things Ave Maria, Paul Roney. In short order, the Florida Department of State received and filed a For-Profit Corporation application for Monaghan's bank.

Monaghan, Roney, and another Shamrock bank Board member, Timothy N. Kaiser, serve together on the board of yet another Florida For-Profit, "Ave Maria Financial Corporation", formed in November 2005.

It was reported last year that the bank would be called "Gulf Coast Bank". Missing from the current list of officers for Shamrock is the former director of the Bank of Naples, Robert Carney Jr., who was slated to be Gulf Coast's director; Carney, however, still serves as President of Ave Maria Financial Corporation. It was also reported in 2006 that Paul Roney would be Shamrock bank's chairman; in that report, Naples News neglected to mention that Roney was also the CFO for Monaghan's Ave Maria Foundation, Ave Maria University, Ave Maria College, and Ave Maria School of Law. It is unclear whether Roney is designated as Shamrock's chairman.

The stated target of the bank is "small businesses and individual real estate investors".

It is no wonder that, just yesterday, Senator Charles Grassley, a long-time advocate of increased financial accountability in the non-profit sector, initiated a strong push to increase transparency in how non-profits manage and report endowments, joint ventures, governance, and related organizations.

For additional details on Shamrock Bank, click below.More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest

Bradenton Herald - May 24, 2007
Interview with Michael J. Beaumier, VP of West Coast Operations with Suffolk Construction, builder of Ave Maria Town.
Excerpt:

Company officials hosted a gathering of about 200 local business people at a networking event Wednesday afternoon [in Lakewood Ranch].

In 2003, Beaumier moved about 30 of his Suffolk staff to Ave Maria near Naples to begin what he thought was a decade-long building project at the first new Catholic university in 40 years.

But Ave Maria hasn't grown as fast as projected, Beaumier said, noting that the university has about 400 students.

Beaumier, whose firm will have eight buildings at the university ready to open to students for the first time on August 15, didn't panic.

Instead, his company, which has built in Boston, West Palm Beach, Miami, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., adjusted and decided to redirect some of those 30 staffers to the Gulf Coast's growing construction market, including what they hope will be new schools in Sarasota and Manatee, hotels, assisted living centers and condos, Beaumier said.

This morning's front page of The Chronicle of Higher Education features AveWatch's exposure of the AALE.

The Chronicle is the most popular newspaper in higher education, with a website that has over 1 million unique visitors/month.

Full text (subscription required)

Tags: accreditation

AMU Chief Financial Officer Paul Roney was recently quoted in Naples News: "We plan on being out there July 28. There is no alternative."( April 21, 2007)

"Out there" refers to moving AMU from Naples into their Ave Maria Town campus. But who is "we"? How many students will AMU be ready to service with dorms and classes? (emphasis added)

+ "Monaghan said he expects to welcome 340 to 350 students when the doors of the new campus open this summer."
Naples News, April 21, 2007

+ "As the University prepares to move to its new campus in fall 2007, enrollment will be well over 500."
Peterson's College Planner (petersons.com), "Last updated 02/12/2007"

+ "The university is targeting an initial enrollment of 650 students at the permanent campus."
Barron Collier's AveMaria.com, May 22, 2007

These are not insignificant differences in terms of students who need services, the selection of courses available, and the number of professors needed to teach: 350-to-500 is a 30% difference while 350-to-650 is over 50%.

Let's be optimistic and assume that Monaghan gets his expected 340 for 2007. Let's also assume that AMU has their expected 60 male students enrolled in the school's pre-theologate program, an undergraduate program that prepares men for direct entrance into a seminary (Naples News, March 27, 2007). If AMU has an equal distribution of male and female students (170 each), then 35% of the males will be "pre-thee". Under these projections, if AMU recruits only 20 more females instead of non-pre-thee males (190 females to 90 non-pre-thee males), the gal to "eligible guy" ratio will be over 2-to-1, making AMU, in effect, a girl's school.

Having a pre-three program is great; but, it certainly makes for a campus dynamic that students should consider, particularly the females looking for that MRS degree.

Regardless of the estimated distribution, AMU's promotion of grossly inaccurate enrollment projections on Peterson's Guide and AveMaria.com should be updated immediately to reduce the appearance of dishonesty.

Tags: environment

AveWatch already reported on AALE's six year history of non-compliance with the standards of accountability put forth by the Department of Education (DOE).

AveWatch now reveals what AALE and AMU neglected to tell the public for the past two months -

AMU's sole accreditor, AALE, had its status as a nationally recognized accrediting agency put on hold ("deferred"), and its scope of abilities limited, until further review by the Department of Education in December 2007. By order of the Secretary of the DOE, new schools that are awarded accreditation by AALE will NOT be eligible for Title IV funding (i.e. federal student loans) until AALE is reviewed for compliance by the DOE.

DOE Secretary Spellings in a March 2007 letter to AALE:
".. I wish to remind you that if the AALE does not [come into full compliance], the Department may be compelled to take action to further limit, suspend, or terminate the AALE’s recognition at or before the December 2007 meeting of the Committee."

The websites of AALE and AMU do not mention any of this, nor have any other public statements on this topic been made by either organization. Are AALE's currently accredited schools even aware of this action by the DOE?

For more details, including the full text of the Secretary's letter, click below.More...

Tags: accreditation, conflict-of-interest

Fumare, a blog on Catholic law and culture, has done much to expose the administrative handling of Ave Maria School of Law. Today's three posts continue to take Ave Maria to the woodshed; they're worth a look. Comments posted at Fumare (aka "puffs of smoke") are always lively.

May 12 National Law Journal Article on AMSOL [go]
Fumare dissects the illogical statements of administrators from a recent National Law Journal article on AMSL.

Is Tom Monaghan the Next Harry John? [go]
Harry John was the eccentric Catholic heir to the Miller Brewing Company. Is history repeating itself with Tom Monaghan?

Robotski Falls out of Gate, Fails Torts, Gets hit with the Pitch [go]
Fumare shreds a recent letter from Charles W. Roboski, Associate Dean for Admissions and External Affairs, that attempts to spank AMSL alumni for opposition to Monaghan's governance.

Deal Hudson is the former go-to man on all things Catholic for the Republican National Committee - "former" because of a sex scandal with one of his college freshman students [1, 2, 3]. On March 23, 2007, he released a statement on the firing of AMU Provost Fr. Joseph Fessio. Excerpt:

A friend asked me yesterday "why do conservative Catholics beat each other up so much?". Good question. One reason that I have observed is their parochialism, in the generic sense, that is. They recognize only the validity of their familiar, local form of belief, worship, and spirituality. They need to keep in mind that the Church has a legitimate diversity, as illustrated by the lives of the saints themselves. Fr. Fessio may be one of those saints, for all we know. Monaghan or Healy another.

Is Hudson suggesting that belief-based parochialism on the part of the aforementioned saints in potentia is the basis for Fessio's firing? This seems unlikely given the co-existence of both 'traditional' and more 'charismatic' conservative elements on the Michigan Ave Maria campuses (AMSL, AMC, and St. Mary's). One should also consider the opportunism of these administrators, including the chance to "use" each other to enhance their own personal and collective influence over orthodoxy's rule-or-ruin. Finally, this observer finds no evidence in any available Ave Maria documents to corroborate belief-based tension on any scale, much less that of a magnitude to trigger implosion.

To understand the parochialism that does appear to be at work, one must go beyond spiritual narrowness and consider managerial and cultural narrowness. Unfettered access to extreme wealth creates a dulling insulation that constricts the ability to recognize other valid assessments of situations. When reading Nick Healy's explanations to Tom Monaghan on the basis for strife at Ave Maria, this becomes apparent. Healy's speculative focus on "what is motivating" critics belies his own parochialism - and it is anything but saintly. There may be no better example of this than Healy's analysis of "Thoughts on AMC", a document by former AMC faculty member Janet Smith.More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest, employee-treatment, accountability

AveWatch is happy to be partnering with a Catholic university as an advertising partner. The university is looking to generate increased interest in the university, particularly in the area of real estate around the univeristy.

We are currently in a two-week trial period of advertising. Depending on results, the contract could be expanded dramatically. The results that need to be seen are primarily identified as hits on the university's website. Please take a few minutes on many occasions this week to go to their website and click around.

Please also let your friends and family know how important this is to AveWatch and encourage them to visit the web-site this week as well, and pass on this message.

Please click below for details on the project and to see how much AW stands to make -

UPDATE, 3/25/07 - Comments to AveWatch show that visitors are not reading the full article. This is a parody of an actual technique employed by Monaghan to artificially bump the number of people that appear interested in his South Florida real estate development, Ave Maria Town. Click below for the scoop:More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest

Pope Pius XI's exhortation for truth-seekers was "Go to Thomas" (Aquinas). So too, focused insight on things Ave can be found by going to the memos of Charles E. Rice, co-founder & former Board member of Ave Maria School of Law, and Professor Emeritus of Law at The University of Notre Dame. His memo to AMSL Dean Dobranski and Tom Monaghan from March 28, 2006 is deserving of a complete read by the public (click below). In the letter, Rice tackles head-on two very troublesome issues that are not well understood by the public:

1) .. the questionable basis of Ave Maria Town's "catholicity", and the representation of such characteristics to the public - excerpt:

However, these and other similar Monaghan-Marinelli statements raise an overall inference that there never was an intention to institute a regime in AMT comparable to what Tom described in his Boston address. Those statements can be reasonably understood to create the impression that anyone who said that the founding intent resembled in any way the content of Tom's Boston statement was uttering a falsehood.

2) .. the terms under which Ave Maria University could be acquired by Barron Collier Companies (BCC) in Monaghan's current 50/50 real estate development deal with them - excerpt from draft of AMU-BCC agreement:

If the University intentionally ceases to be a Catholic university, or intentionally or materially deviates from its stated plan to become a broad-based high quality institution for higher-learning and does not correct these defaults after due warning from Collier, then.. Collier shall have the option to... acquire the University's 50% interest in undeveloped lands at the original cost to the University, and... acquire the University's remaining interest in the Partnership at the then current market value. (edited)
More...

Tags: accountability, conflict-of-interest

According to the New York Times (July 30, 2006), long-time Ave Maria Board-member favorite Bowie Kuhn said "This is not a bunch of trained dogs.." in defending against Ave boards that appear to act as rubber stamps for Tom Monaghan. Other Board members have offered similar defenses over the years in popular media.

But evidence to the contrary exists within the walls of Ave Maria itself.More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest, accountability

... or is it? Ask the average Joe in Southeast Michigan about Tom Monaghan and you'll hear something like "Yeah, that goof fired Ernie Harwell." Over fifteen years after dropping the beloved "Voice of the Detroit Tigers", feelings about Monaghan's involvement in Harwell's release are far from long gone. It's been called "the most ridiculed firing in broadcast history", and was ranked by ESPN as one of the Top 25 Biggest Sports Flops of 1979-2004. Some still refuse to eat Domino's Pizza because of it.

According to the Detroit News, author and baseball historian Curt Smith said of Harwell's firing, "Bo Schembechler and Tom Monaghan should be ashamed of themselves. You cannot overestimate the damage this has done to the Tigers. If you are a businessman, you don't fire your best asset."

Sound familiar?

Roger McCaffrey, Publisher of Roman Catholic Books and former AMU employee, recently said "How do you recommend a University whose leaders behave as they did in firing their best friend, their most loyal and devoted player [Fr. Fessio]?"

The handling of Harwell by Monaghan was a foretaste of things to come, managerially.More...

Tags: accountability

Long-time AMC, then AMSL, employee David J. Kelley resigned today as Director of Development. Kelley states "We were torn by this" in reference to the decision of whether to move his family to Florida. Kelley is staying in Michigan, having secured a position at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Over the years, Sacred Heart has hired a number of highly-regarded ex-Ave employees including Drs. John Hittinger, Ed Peters, and Janet Smith.

Letter full text (PDF)

Tags: resignations

This story is breathtaking.

A 2006 graduate of Ave Maria School of Law documents how school administration obstructed his Bar admission, apparently based upon the student's criticism of management. Excerpt:

As you already know, I had passed the Bar Exam in July 2006 but my Bar admission was held up because I had not received character and fitness clearance from the State Bar. Back in October 2006, I wrote to tell you that I suspected that something was not right. I was suspicious in part because on March 30, 2006 I had received an anonymous threatening e-mail, which, among others things, stated:

"How do you expect this law school to sign off on your character and fitness if you criticize every move that the Dean and the faculty, who sign off on your character and fitness, makes. Think about it. I assume you are knowledgeable of this requirement."

It was at this point that I learned that the Ave Maria School of Law Administration had composed (what one reviewer described as) a vicious 10-page memorandum about me, which was accompanied by 56 separate so-called exhibits (totaling more than 250 pages in all), and submitted it to the State Bar’s Character and Fitness Section.

It should be noted that during my time as a student at Ave Maria School of Law I was a strong believer, defender, and follower of the Law School’s stringent Honor Code and was in fact never formally disciplined by the Law School – academically or otherwise. Moreover, as you are all aware, the Law School faculty certified my character and fitness, allowing me to graduate last May 2006.

Accordingly, after the close of my informal interview with the District Committee panel, I received a unanimous favorable decision within 10 minutes.

Hat-tip to Fumare.

Tags: employee-treatment, accountability, environment

Thursday May 10, 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Said Mr. Dobranski: "We've done well here [in Ann Arbor]. We've thrived here. But I think we will thrive even more there. If there wasn't a financial benefit, I'd still be enthusiastic about moving because it will provide the law school with such a unique opportunity."

So, the Dean is so sold on AMU and the Town that he'd uproot the School even without Monaghan's still un-documented "promise" to share home-sale proceeds with the School?! This is big news.

The Dean's central motivation and rationale are slowly being revealed. His aforementioned statement reinforces the notion that he and the Law School Board have been acting on pretense - that the decision to uproot the School to Mr. Monaghan's Florida real estate development is not, in fact, based primarily on the School's financial benefit in the deal.

The basis for the move appears to be peeling down to one foundational reason - because duty to Tom Monaghan's desire supersedes all other duties of the institution. As Judge James Ryan, one of Monaghan's Board members, said in a room full of faculty among other nodding Board members: "We [the Board] are just here to help Tom spend his money," and "We all need to remember that this is Tom's enterprise." (New Oxford Review, Sept. 2003)

Chronicle - full text (subscription login required), or try also
Click below for excerpts.

UPDATE, 5/11/07 - Be sure to also note how the Dean has: denied the existence of the Falvey Report [1,2]; denied that the ABA was investigating his administration; contradicted himself repeatedly on how long the Board has been considering a move to Monaghan's real estate development More...

Tags: accountability

The Dean and President of Ave Maria School of Law, Bernard Dobranski, has come under fire over the past two years, prompting such actions as: votes of "no confidence" in his leadership by faculty and alumni; an investigation by the School's accreditor into administrative practices; and, a recent public plea by the School's faculty to make colleagues aware of their plight under Dobranski's mismanagement. One year ago, founder and former AMSL Board member Professor Charles E. Rice said: The Board confirmed its compliant role when it voted "[u]nanimously" to express its "total confidence" in Bernie on the same day that virtually unprecedented charges were made against Bernie by the faculty... It was disgusting. Every Governor who voted for that resolution [to support Dobranski] should resign."

But was Dean Dobranski always one of the compliant yes-men who Tom Monaghan seems to surround himself with?

Says former Ave Maria College Dean of Students Dr. Chris Beiting:

I did confide my frustration with the situation at Ave Maria College to Dean Dobranski of AMSOL.

A lot of people look back at me as one of the organizers of the attempts to save the College and its people, but I was really just following the helpful suggestions of other people, most notably Dean Dobranski.

... we couldn't have done any of it [legal action against Monaghan and his Board] without the help of Dean Dobranski. In a sense, he made it all possible.More...

Note the highlighted plot in the northwest corner of Ave Maria Town, immediately off of Ave Maria Blvd.More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest, accountability

The bullying appears to continue at Ave Maria University. According to several AMU students and parents, students are being forced by the University to submit housing and insurance forms for the next academic year (Fall 2007) at AMU or face "fines". What is curious about this practice is that even students who tell AMU that they are transferring to another university are still being compelled to submit the forms.

At least one transferring student who resisted completing the forms was sent to AMU Vice President John (Jack) Sites. Apparently, she was "interrogated by Sites about why she was leaving"; she also had to "plead her case before department after department" in an "ordeal that lasted over 3 hours."

The insistence that students transferring out of AMU must complete the forms may be tied to AMU's upcoming applications for accreditation to AALE and SACS. Ave Maria administrators have a history of making their numbers appear larger than actual. In Fall 2003, AMU President Nick Healy bragged about the University having 101 students [1,2] What he did not say was that 80 of those 101 students were actually enrolled in Ave Maria College (Michigan), not AMU (New Oxford Review, Sept. 2004). At the time (August 2003), AMU had also submitted an application to SACS (Naples News, August 2004). Recently, "Healy said he hopes to reapply with SACS in May" (Naples News, April 21, 2007).

Enrollment figures are also used by the federal government to receive institutional aid (IPEDS report).

It was suggested that students and parents who find this to be coercive should file a complaint with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the American Academy of Liberal Education (AALE), and the Florida Department of Education (FL-CIE).

Tags: accountability, environment

Yesterday, a south Florida TV station ran a story about this website and Ave Maria University. The issues raised need addressing.

The reporter has AMU Vice President Jack Sites stating that the university has an 8% increase in enrollment despite the claim of a current AMU student that students are leaving in "bunches". Sites also points to the Fall 2006 enrollment at 501, up from 464 in Fall 2005.

Does Mr. Sites want us to believe that AMU does not have an enrollment issue?

1) Naples News, Dec. 4, 2006 devotes an entire article to the enrollment problem, headlined "School's slow growth prompts funding plea". Excerpts:
+ "In a recent letter to Ave Maria University supporters, Provost Joseph Fessio wrote that enrollment and retention numbers.. are low."
+ "After disclosing a laundry list of problems the school has with recruitment and retention, Fessio made a serious plea to potential donors.."

2) AMU administrators recently sacked the Director of the Admissions Department, and had nearly all of its staff resign (see 1, 2), prompting Monaghan to hire consultants and state "We were surprised at how out-of-date we were". Naples News (April 15, 2007) says "[AMU Vice President] Sites confirmed Avewatch reports that Ave Maria is considering hiring an outside consulting firm to help recruit students."

3) If enrollment is at 501 (as Sites wants us to believe) and Sites claims yesterday that "Our retention rate looks as though it's going to be better than it's ever been", why did Naples News say just two weeks ago that "Monaghan said he expects to welcome 340 to 350 students when the doors of the new campus open this summer."? Going from 501 to 350 is a loss of 30%, which is the same loss that AveWatch recently reported. Mr. Sites, your slick quoting of the Fall 2006 enrollment figure, not the April 2007 figure, creates a deception for the TV viewer on the accurate portrayal of AMU's current enrollment status.

According to the TV report, Sites says that AMU is "about ready for our final accreditation process" with the AALE. AMU's temporary accreditation ends in November 2007, and AALE's head is on the chopping block at the Department of Education; the DOE already suspended AALE's ability to accredit schools until a June re-evaluation [story here; stories on AALE at InsideHigherEd.com 1, 2]. That is, AMU is "about ready" to start a process with an accreditor that, as of right now, has no authorization to grant new Title IV authority. AMU has not yet submitted an application to their regional accreditor SACS. Without accreditation, AMU will be unable to accept federal student financial aid. Sites apparently didn't bother to mention any of that to the TV station.

This is becoming a very obnoxious habit for Ave Maria - attempting to appear as whoever their current audience might want them to be - one thing for donors, another for the TV audience. Mr. Sites makes the case rather nicely for why a watchdog site like this needs to exist for Ave Maria.

Tags: accountability

The fear is growing that Dean Dobranski and Mr. Monaghan now intend to abandon our school, whether or not a new one eventually will arise in Florida. Indeed, at a recent meeting with AMSL students, the Dean stated that the administration has no contingency plan in the event that the ABA refuses to acquiesce in the move, and that two Board members believe that AMSL is a "failed experiment."
- Association of Ave Maria Faculty, excerpt from statement, 4/30/07

Several weeks ago, Ave Maria School of Law Dean Bernhard Dobranski held a "town hall meeting" for AMSL students. According to students at the meeting, the Dean stated that "at least two members of the Board of Governors expressed their opinion that the Law School was a 'failed experiment'." The Dean's intentional public leak of such sentiment comes on the heels of a memo to all employees and students in which he said, "Naturally, activities that are affirmatively injurious to the Law School during the course of one's employment at AMSL are not acceptable." [full memo]

For all of the administration's threats against any kind of "affirmatively injurious behavior" in the move to Tom Monaghan's Florida real estate development...
For all the false accusations that the faculty are the ones attempting to start a "new" school rather than protect their existing school...
For all this, could there be anything more injurious to the school's future existence than the Dean spreading the notion that some Board members find the school "failed"? How are prospective students, existing students, employees, donors, and institutional accreditors to respond to this?
More...

Tags: accountability