Paul Smith’s College to Receive $20 Million Gift if It Changes its Name!

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Smith’s College, one of the truly special colleges in upstate New York, has an interesting dilemma. A donor, Joan Weill, the wife of the Wall Street billionaire Sanford I. Weill, is willing to donate $20 million to the college if it changes its name to Joan Weill-Paul Smith’s College. However, the college was created with money and land bequeathed by its founder, Phelps Smith, to honor his father, a celebrated hotelier. When Mr. Smith died in 1937, his will directed that the school be built on the site of the former Paul Smith’s Hotel. The will also required that the institution be “forever known” as Paul Smith’s College of Arts and Sciences. The requirements imposed by both Mr. Smith in his will and by Mrs. Weill in her proposed gift leave the college in a sticky philanthropic situation. As reported in the New York Times:

“…the decision will most likely be made in court.

On Tuesday [today], Justice John T. Ellis of State Supreme Court in Franklin County plans to consider the college’s request to be released from the “forever” requirement in Mr. Smith’s will.

Mrs. Weill has been active in the school’s development and governance for more than two decades.

The petition lays out the college’s challenges. It operated at a loss of nearly $2 million in 2013. Its current $27 million endowment cannot keep the college operating in the long term. The college must enroll more students in order to survive. The demographics of college students are changing: They are increasingly coming from ethnically diverse and lower-income households.

The high cost of operating, and the college’s $36,000-a-year price tag for students, means that it “is not very selective, accepting approximately 76 percent of all applicants,” according to its court filing.

Given those factors, Mr. Smith’s “forever” requirement “nearly fatally impedes” the college’s ability to seek large gifts from a single donor to adapt and grow, the petition said. Holding the school to the provisions of its founder’s will “may make it impossible to maintain the institution for higher education in the future, as was the general purpose of the gift,” according to the filing.

The proposed name change has brought head-scratching opposition from alumni and neighbors, who say they appreciate Mrs. Weill’s generosity but do not understand why the college should change its name.”

It sounds to me that Paul Smith’s College is heading for an interesting legal battle should Judge Ellis rule in favor of the request and descendants of Paul Smith decide to challenge his ruling.

Tony

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