Dean Ellis termination may cost Marshall millions in donor support

Marshall School of Business donors and alumni are lashing out at the University’s recent decision to terminate Dean James Ellis in June 2019.

Poets & Quants, a news site covering graduate business schools, reported that a Marshall development officer said the school may lose an estimated $30 to $40 million in donor support. The Daily Trojan could not independently confirm this statement.

In a statement to the Daily Trojan, Rachel Morrell, associate dean and chief development officer of Marshall, said the school’s fundraising remains steady.

“Though the USC Marshall School surpassed its campaign goal of $400 million in December 2017, fundraising at the school remains strong,” Morrell said. “While we measure fundraising progress over the length of a campaign, not in monthly increments or a single point in time, we can say that the current fundraising total for the school is ahead of where we were at this point in time last year.”

The Board of Trustees announced its support of Interim President Wanda Austin’s decision to terminate Ellis after a December board meeting, despite protest from the Marshall community and a Change.org petition with 2,830 signatures at the time of the decision. The petition now has over 3,650 signatures.

Ted Kaiser,  a Marshall alumnus from the class of 2005, is considering ending his donations to the University. Kaiser is a USC Athletics Cardinal and Gold donation tier member and pledges $3,000 to the athletic department each year, and also donates funds to Marshall.

“There’s a lot of people just like me, friends of mine who are kind of in the same boat and kind of the same thing,” Kaiser said. “The Dean Ellis thing was the last straw in … a decade’s worth of missteps.”

Kaiser said many of his friends told the University that they will not donate to recent Marshall pledge drives.

“I know several of my friends have canceled season football tickets, they have canceled their Cardinal and Gold memberships,” Kaiser said. “A number of them have been contacted by Marshall recently during their pledge drive and said no, they weren’t going to continue giving this year.”

George Getz, a Marshall alumnus who currently serves on the Marshall Board of Leaders, said he has been giving money to the University due to Ellis’ contributions to the business school.

“With the departure of [Ellis and former president C. L. Max Nikias], it has changed my interests in wanting to give money back to the school,” Getz said.

Getz believes that the lack of transparency and the lack of communication from Austin and the Board of Trustees will lead to a decline in donations to Marshall.

“I think it is going to cost the school tens of millions dollars in donations from people who have known Jim and have supported Jim,” Getz said. “Whether it has been an outstanding pledge or new dollars that they would have given to the school as a result of him being there, with him being terminated, there will be a significant decline in giving.”

Though Getz would not disclose how much he donates to the University, he describes himself as a “significant” donor to Marshall, the School of Dramatic Arts and the Joint Educational Project.

Lloyd Greif, benefactor of the Lloyd Greif Center of Entrepreneurial Studies, would not disclose his plans for future donations, but said he is not surprised that other alumni and donors have threatened to pull funding from the University.

“People see [Ellis] as being mistreated here … They see it as an unjust termination,” Greif said. “When people don’t agree with things, they vote. The only way the alumni can vote is to vote with their dollars, because there’s no election here.”

Dean Hallett, a donor and alumni who also serves as the president of Hallett Leadership, said he finished paying a five-year pledge early in 2018, before news of Ellis’ termination broke. Hallett said he hadn’t planned to make any major donations, but would have pulled funds if he were.

In the past 15 years, Hallett has served on various University boards and donated to scholarships and capital funds at USC. But he said he has lost trust in University administration and would like to see more transparency in how Ellis’ termination was announced.

“Because of how things are being handled, and there’s such a swell of controversy over this whole thing, I think I’d be inclined to pull back because of that,” Hallett said. “I don’t know the truth, so I can’t say it’s because of what action the University is taking, but it’s the way that everything is being handled that is particularly bothersome to me.”

Greg Autry, an assistant clinical professor at Marshall, said he believes Ellis’ termination and the possible loss in donations will negatively affect students.

“I think it reduces the value of your degree,” Autry said. “I think it’s going to ruin what was a very cohesive culture of Marshall.”