From the category archives:
If the recession has you hunting for work, Duke is probably not the place to send your resume.
The University is on track to receive 125,000 applications for non-faculty jobs this year, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said.
“And of course, we have no jobs,” he added.
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Forbes magazine has ranked Durham third in its Top College Town for Jobs list Tuesday.
With 7.4% of workers in university jobs and 2.49 employment growth since last year, Durham is one of the top cities seeing “business booms,” the magazine reports. Although job availability decreased by 3.5% over the course of 12 months from March 2008, 62 college towns reportedly saw employment growth. The magazine also considers Duke Durham’s primary university.
Forbes defines “college town” as an area where “employment from universities, four-year colleges, two-year community colleges and university medical teaching hospitals supplied 2 percent or more of area jobs.”
The magazine also considers research universities “great environments” for employment and businesses because of the availability of recent college graduates, providing talent and inexpensive labor.
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Duke parents bookend the Associated Press’s list of the top 10 highest-paid CEOs in the S&P 500 for 2008. The list is based on filings and estimates from Jan. 1 to April 20.
No. 1 Aubrey McClendon, Trinity ‘81, earned $112.5 million as CEO of Chesapeake Energy. Duke parent Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, closes out the top 10 with $35.7 million. McClendon and Dimon both have daughters currently enrolled at Duke; their eldest children also graduated from the University.
Both men are big bankrollers of the University, too: McClendon has given some $16 million to his alma mater, and Dimon donated $100,000 in 2006.
Despite his distinction, it might be difficult for McClendon to break out the bubbly. McClendon is auctioning 9,000 bottles of his prized wine collection. The first group fetched $2.2 million. The second sale is expected this month.
The move came after McClendon was forced to liquidate his shares in Chesapeake. He sold 94 percent of his holdings, valued at $2 billion, in accordance with margin calls after a steep decline in the stock’s price.
Seeking Alpha crunched a few numbers, and it seems McClendon made around $2,008,928 for every 1 percent his stock dropped.
In addition to stocks dropping, there also was some list movement from 2007 to 2008, when much of the financial industry was turned on its head during the deepening recession.
Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, father of a graduating senior, was 2007’s No. 2. (Thain was at the top of USA Today’s analysis.) He earned $83 million that year, but resigned this January after his bank was taken over by Bank of America. Trustee John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley, was listed at No. 9 in 2007, with $41.7 million in compensation. But Mack, who remains both a Trustee and a CEO, saw his 2008 pay drop to $1.2 million for 2008.
Know of any other Duke affiliates at the top of the pay chain? Post a comment
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Aubrey McClendon - AP
Aubrey McClendon, multi-billionaire chief executive of Chesapeake Energy and a prominent Duke donor, may be auctioning off 9,000 bottles of wine to curb his recent losses. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Wealth Report, people familiar with the auction say McClendon will in fact be the anonymous seller at the Sotheby-hosted event. The auction is called “Classic Cellar from a Great American Collector” and will be hosted this March and April:
Mr. McClendon is one of the top wine collectors in the country, known for his love of Burgundy and Bordeaux. He also is known for his cash crunch. Last fall, he was forced to sell 94% of his stake in Chesapeake to pay back margin loans. Mr. McClendon’s stake once was valued at more than $2 billion. So it wouldn’t be surprising if he were to want to liquidate some of his, er, liquid assets.
McClendon’s previous losses are a concern for the University, which has benefited from $16 million in donations from him and his wife, both who are Duke alums, Duke officials have said. McClendon has provided funds to build the McClendon Tower and West Campus Plaza, as well as bring in an organ for the Divinity School’s Goodson Chapel and refurbish one of the Chapel’s organs.
Sotheby’s sale won’t make up for the $1.4 billion McClendon lost on the sale of his stocks, but The Journal reports that it’ll help, even if relatively little:
Sotheby’s says it expects the sale to fetch at least $5 million–not much for a former billionaire, but these days every little million helps.
Updated 7:54 p.m.
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Five Duke professors signed a declaration prepared by the Cato Institute that ran in Wednesday’s New York Times . Cato is a libertarian-leaning think-tank located in Washington, D.C. A PDF version of the ad can be found here.
The five are:
The ad opens with a quote by President Barack Obama from earlier this month: “There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.” To this, the signers replied, “With all due respect Mr.President,that is not true.” The ad goes on to explain why the fiscal stimulus is a bad idea, and why they believe there is not and should not be a consensus on the issue.
Keep your eyes peeled for a story with quotes from the above professors in the print edition of The Chronicle.
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