Increasingly university presidents are turning over their business schools to millionaire equity investment executives. Kenneth Freeman was offered the deanship of Boston University’s B-School. He is from KKR, and his job was to oversee all of the firm’s private equity investments around the world including serving as director of hospital operator HCA, medical device maker Accellent, and building products manufacturer Masonite. In addition to his deanship Freeman will continue his affiliation with KKR as a senior advisor. Speaking of Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, in October 2010 Henry Kravis, called the Buy-Out king, pledged $100 million to his Alma Mata the Columbia Business School to help construct new facilities in Harlem and the building will be named after him. In another example Pace University’s president appointed Neil Braun as their dean effective July 1, 2010. Braun, a lawyer, has 30 years experience in media management positions most recently as president of the NBC Television Network and CEO of Viacom Entertainment. B-schools seek these finance moguls to serve as celebrities who will increase the schools visibility and of course bring in “big bucks.” They want produce a David Tepper who made $4 billion in 2009 or a billionaire celebrity politician like Mitt Romney. They have no idea of the negative consequences of such actions, especially on B-school faculty and students. To offer moguls positions and have buildings named after these guys who destroyed much of the manufacturing in America and terminated millions of employees is brazenly unethical. They should all be given an ethics background check by outside ethicists before any university embraces them.

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