(originally published in the Stony Brook Press, November 26, 1997)
By Stephen Preston
Kenny and the Part-Time JobsSo tell me, you cynical embittered students, tell me how you think Shirley Strum Kenny is supposed to make all her dreams come true with her $170,000 salary as Stony Brook's President. Clearly she cannot, and thus she has been forced to take several part-time jobs for supplemental income. Have many of you not been in the same situation? Have you not taken a job for Aramark or Wallace's to earn a few extra bucks? Surely! So do not think to throw stones at Shirley Strum Kenny as you hear what she's been forced to do.
According to Kenny's 1996 Financial Disclosure Statements (available through the State Ethics Commission, if you're willing to traipse to Dennis Vacco's office in Manhattan), she held four part-time jobs, serving on: the Scholarship Committee of Seagrams, the Regional Advisory Board of Chase Manhattan, the Board of Directors of Toys 'R' Us, and the Board of Directors of Computer Associates. I do not know what she does for the scholarship committee. She is presumably paid for serving on the Regional Advisory Board of Chase Manhattan, but I do not know what her duties are.
Her positions on the Boards of Directors are rather important, however. Thanks to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), it is fairly easy to find out about them, since every corporation is required to file with the SEC on all compensation of its Directors. According to these reports (Computer Associates SEC Def 14A report; Toys 'R' Us SEC Def 14A report), Kenny earned $30,000 as a base salary for being a Director at Toys 'R' Us. She also earned $1500 for every meeting of the Board she attended. At 6 meetings a year, this brings her total Toys 'R' Us compensation to $39,000.
As a director of Computer Associates, Kenny earns $45,000 per year. For this she attends 8 meetings per year. Just for the sake of curiosity, let's compare Kenny's part-time job to the one you probably have. Let's assume that each meeting takes one full day, and Kenny spends two more days reading stock reports or something. This brings Kenny's total working time to two forty-hour weeks. So for each week, she earns $22,500. If you work for Aramark or anywhere else on campus, you will make the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, or $206 per week. This means that Shirley Kenny's time is worth roughly 110 times as much as yours. Of course, this is a conservative estimate, since she probably doesn't work quite so long.
Computer Associates' Other University Connections
"Wait a minute!", you think. "Haven't I heard the name 'Computer Associates' somewhere before?" Yes, you have! You'll recall that Computer Associates donated, in March 1996, a Quality Assurance Lab and a Transaction Processing Lab to our own Computer Science department. (OK, so this was never publicized on campus, and you never heard about it; read the press release on CA's web page.) You'll also recall the very recent announcement that Computer Associates would donate money to the Computer Science department to expand the faculty and increase enrollment.
Now there was an editorial furor in the Statesman over these donations. Apparently the Statesman suspected that all was not well with these donations, that perhaps CA had certain unpublicized ulterior motives. Statesman has been and continues to be roundly chastised for their cynicism, by Computer Science's Steven Skiena ("There is absolutely nothing sinister about this...") and by New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who said that CUNY would gladly take CA's donations). Is there any cause for concern, as Statesman believes? Or is it just Charles Wang's (CA's CEO) unabashed generosity at work, as Skiena believes?
Computer Associates seems to believe the whole plan is rather sinister. For example, according to CA's press release from March 1996, the computer science curriculum is being changed a bit: "Students taking four new courses will review the latest updates in CA software... These key courses will prepare today's students for a wide variety of professional positions by familiarizing them on the CA-Unicenter systems and network management solution and CA-OpenIngres information management solutions..." Computer Associates also suggests that another ulterior motive might be to get CS faculty to help the corporation fix the problems with CA's software: "The partnership establishes two major SUNY software research projects at Stony Brook... [One] project will develop a new database concurrency control that will allow databases to process more transactions per second. CA has donated a source code version of CA-OpenIngres, which two Ph.D. candidates will update with the concurrency control method... [In another], [a faculty member] and a Ph.D. candidate will develop a language and protocols to support workflow applications over the Internet using the CA-OpenIngres database."
How about Computer Associates more recent announcement, that CA would contribute faculty to "double the number of computer science undergraduates"? Anything sinister there? Unfortunately, CA does not actually have a press release on this topic. However, the idea that "employees from [CA] will obtain adjunct professor positions at the University in order to teach specialized classes" might seem a tad suspicious, especially in light of CA's previous plans to add the new courses to teach students to love and appreciate CA software. There are rumors of more collaborative projects between CA and Stony Brook as well, but nobody yet has any details on them. (Author's Note: This was a reference to the Software Incubator, which at the time was just a rumor. It was eventually created; you can find out more about it at the Software Incubator's web page.)
Ostensibly - that is, according to Stony Brook's official spokespersons - these donations are intended only to increase the number of computer science majors at Stony Brook so that Computer Associates will have more and better employees. Ignoring the fact that Computer Associates itself doesn't seem to share this interpretation, let's analyze the idea more carefully. Why would Computer Associates spend so much money on our computer science department? It is suggested in the Statesman article on the subject that CA has a lot of trouble finding employees. According to Skiena, "[CA] obviously needs quality trained software people and you can either import them or you can make them." Charles Wang has said in interviews that due to the miserable living conditions on Long Island or rumors thereof, many employees are not willing to move here to work for him. Makes sense, right?
However... Another reason people may not want to work for Computer Associates is that the working conditions aren't so great either. According to a Newsday article from July 4, 1993: "Employees are expected to put in long hours, display unyielding dedication and flexibility and accept relatively low starting pay." Some former employees in various Newsday articles said things like "You're either fanatically loyal or you're gone," "...burnout is a real problem at CA," and "The whole place is run on fear." Newsday, on August 16, 1995, also suggested that working at CA has a price: "long hours, the possibility of frequent and drastic changes in assignment and total dedication to the company and its chief executive [Charles Wang]." Another quote: "At critical times... employees often work 11- and 12-hour days, and come in on weekends." Those who don't are "mocked behind their backs, then driven out."
So even if CA is not trying to get students and faculty to redesign CA's software, their motives may not be so noble after all. Do we really want computer science students to be trained here to use primarily CA software? Do we want CA employees to teach students how to get jobs at CA? I would argue not. It doesn't mean Stony Brook should encourage people not to work there; however, students should also be qualified to work at companies other than CA when they graduate.
But what about Charles Wang's most selfless donation, our beloved (potential) Asian-American Center? Surely this $25 million gift is nothing but beneficent, and thus we can't just go around bashing Charles like ingrates, right? Well, not exactly. Remember what's actually in the Asian-American Center? Along with the cultural things, there is a computer lab and various technology which Charles feels is the beginning of a "virtual university." According to an Administration official, Wang was considering building onto the Computer Science building for some kind of Computer Associates Research facility, but he has apparently changed his mind and wants to build it directly onto the Asian-American Center. At this point it is hard to tell how serious the plan is, but it helps to explain why someone who treats his employees so poorly would suddenly become so generous.
According to Stony Brook's press release from November 3, 1997 (see the "Octos" issue of Happenings for details) this is only one of the projects of the "Center for Software Excellence," "a program developed jointly by CA and Stony Brook to promote research and development in areas leading to the creation of new software companies in the Long Island area." How generous! Charles Wang, who made his fortune by devouring smaller software companies, now wants SUNY to help him create new smaller software companies. Surely there are others who believe this action is not totally selfless...
It seems likely that if the Center ever gets around to needing some kind of space of its own, it will get it in the Asian-American Center (as Kenny herself has suggested). If it was to go any other place on campus, Wang and Kenny would have to apply to the legislature for another ground lease. Considering how difficult it has been for Kenny to get a Campus Village ground lease, it seems they would have the same difficulty with this. But Wang got a ground lease for his Asian-American Center with no trouble at all, and now he can do essentially anything he wants with that space.
Laverne, Shirley, and the Ethics Commission
Now here's where Shirley Strum Kenny comes in. You're probably wondering at this stage whether Kenny's positions as Computer Associates Director and Stony Brook Overlord are in any way incompatible, or if they perhaps create a conflict of interest, especially considering what's already happened between CA and Stony Brook.
I asked Kenny how, with her Shakespearean literature background, she ended up on the Boards of Directors of Toys 'R' Us and Computer Associates (neither of which have any direct connection to Shakespeare). Her response: "I was asked to be on those two boards. I have found it enormously helpful as a businessperson in this job and I hope I have been helpful to the boards as well. Any time any official of the University is asked to be on a Board of Directors, ... that goes to the State Ethics Commission."
A perusal of the New York State Ethics Commission's Advisory Opinions shows that Kenny indeed went to them. Check out Advisory Opinion #95-21, for example. In this Opinion, a certain SUNY campus President (names are deleted for anonymity) asked the Ethics Commission to join the Board of Directors of a certain for-profit computer software company... But let's not play games. It's obvious they're referring to Kenny and CA (though they won't actually admit it).
The compensation for this position was supposed to be $30,000 per year and 2,000 stock options. Interestingly, the Ethics Commission allowed her to take the job and the flat compensation, but not the stock option. Their rationale was the concern that "a personal, equity interest in Computer Associates would create the appearance of impropriety." It is thus very interesting that Kenny owns stock in Computer Associates anyway. According to the SEC reports, she owned 2500 shares of CA stock in 1994, upon first becoming a Director. After two stock splits and one apparent purchase or payment of 575 shares, she has 6200 shares of stock in Computer Associates. With a value of around $70 per share, this means Kenny has over $430,000 invested in CA.
Now could there possibly be a conflict of interest between a heavy investment in CA and a position on their Board of Directors, and a position of authority over the Computer Science department? Did Kenny pressure the Computer Science department to conform to Wang's demands for fear of budget cuts? Skiena seems to believe something like this; he seemed concerned about the recent cuts in faculty, and thrilled that there would be any new money in the department.
Any involvement between Kenny, Stony Brook, and Computer Associates is a violation of the Ethics Commission's specific requests to Kenny. She was ordered to "disclose and recuse herself from matters concerning Computer Associates or SUNY (e.g., renewal of existing contracts, Computer Associates' possibly seeking to perform new services for SUNY, Computer Associates' giving of property of services to SUNY)." If Kenny even knew about any negotiations between CA and Stony Brook's Computer Science department without full disclosure, this is a serious violation of ethics. It is becoming increasingly evident that Kenny did have some knowledge of these collaborations, and that she knows of other deals that have not yet become public.
It is for all of these reasons that members of the Press and Statesman recently filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission. The Commission is currently evaluating the complaint, and will soon decide whether to pursue a full investigation of Kenny's actions. Kenny has compromised our faith in her independence, and shattered our confidence that her private investments are not influencing her public actions.
A French philosopher once said, "The law prevents the rich man and the poor man equally from stealing bread and sleeping under the bridge at night." The law prevents you from stealing from Aramark, and allows them to steal from you. But perhaps the law can also be used, for once, to help students. This is our hope: that Kenny's most recent ethics violations will finally be the last straw. Here's a quick summary of the laws Kenny seems to have broken, from the Ethics Commission complaint:
--She created the appearance of impropriety by serving on the Board of Directors of CA, in violation of Public Officers' Law ("An officer... of a state agency should abstain from making personal investments in enterprises which... may be directly involved in decisions to be made by him," and "An officer... of a state agency should endeavor to pursue a course of conduct which will not raise suspicion among the public that he is... in violation of his trust.")
--She failed to disclose her knowledge of, and possibly participated in, negotiations between Computer Associates and Stony Brook for the "Center for Software Excellence" projects, in violation of the specific provisions of the Ethics Commission's Advisory Opinion 95-21.
--She held stock in Computer Associates while serving on the Board of Directors, in violation of the intent of Advisory Opinions 95-21 and 96-29.
--The proposed construction on campus of any offices for Computer Associates or the "Center for Software Excellence" could violate parts of Education Law and the Public Officers' Law, which prevent campus officials from holding any personal interest in leases of campus property.
The Press has made a point of accusing Kenny of whoring herself for Charles Wang. This is a serious misconception. Kenny is not a whore, she is a pimp. She is whoring the departments on the campus to profiteers and her personal friends. It must stop here, with Charles Wang. While it is understandable that the Computer Science department may not openly object to these deals (since they see no other source of money), they must be stopped nonetheless. With any luck, the Ethics Commission will find her guilty of ethical violations before she flees to Texas. Kenny must go, but not voluntarily.
[Author's note: Ultimately, the Ethics Commission rejected the complaint, citing a lack of evidence.]