Gyroscopic Investing

    ‘You have a PR nightmare on your hands’
    Grandma ‘I will pull every dime before my granddaughter sets foot on your campus’
    ‘A national disgrace – disgusting’
    ‘the mob’s threats … totalitarian to insane’
    Student: ‘racism smaller than it is made out to be’
    Student: ‘As an African American, I am embarrassed by my fellow students’
    ‘I pledge NOT to contribute to your fund’
    Donations to Athletic Department plunged 72%
    Overall donations down
    Freshman student enrollment down a quarter

Mizzou’s vice chancellor for marketing and communications, Ellen De Graffenreid, received a disheartening email last fall at the pinnacle of the crisis on campus. A disgruntled parent wrote to the university’s Board of Curators, describing how her son, a sophomore, considered transferring out, while their two high-school-aged children “have all but eliminated Mizzou from their college list.”

Someone had forwarded the note to the university’s Department of Marketing and Communications, adding: “I’m sure you already know this but you have a PR nightmare on your hands.” De Graffenreid, in turn, forwarded it to the college’s leadership, adding the letter from a parent was “pretty representative of the middle of the road people we are losing.”

New correspondence reviewed by Heat Street and National Review depicts the cataclysmic backlash against the University of Missouri as its administrators grappled with demands from rowdy protestors, a hunger-striking grad student, and a boycotting football team. The protests ultimately toppled both the president and the chancellor.

Ad Orientem wrote:

    ‘You have a PR nightmare on your hands’
    Grandma ‘I will pull every dime before my granddaughter sets foot on your campus’
    ‘A national disgrace – disgusting’
    ‘the mob’s threats … totalitarian to insane’
    Student: ‘racism smaller than it is made out to be’
    Student: ‘As an African American, I am embarrassed by my fellow students’
    ‘I pledge NOT to contribute to your fund’
    Donations to Athletic Department plunged 72%
    Overall donations down
    Freshman student enrollment down a quarter

Mizzou’s vice chancellor for marketing and communications, Ellen De Graffenreid, received a disheartening email last fall at the pinnacle of the crisis on campus. A disgruntled parent wrote to the university’s Board of Curators, describing how her son, a sophomore, considered transferring out, while their two high-school-aged children “have all but eliminated Mizzou from their college list.”

Someone had forwarded the note to the university’s Department of Marketing and Communications, adding: “I’m sure you already know this but you have a PR nightmare on your hands.” De Graffenreid, in turn, forwarded it to the college’s leadership, adding the letter from a parent was “pretty representative of the middle of the road people we are losing.”

New correspondence reviewed by Heat Street and National Review depicts the cataclysmic backlash against the University of Missouri as its administrators grappled with demands from rowdy protestors, a hunger-striking grad student, and a boycotting football team. The protests ultimately toppled both the president and the chancellor.

Read the rest here...
http://heatst.com/culture-wars/inside-t ... at-mizzou/