Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Paul Smith’s College
Sandy Weill, of Citigroup infamy, and his wife, Joan Weill, have given $10 million over the years to Paul Smith’s College, a small campus of 1,000 students situated on a lake and nestled in the breathtaking Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. The $10 million resulted in Joan Weill’s name being placed on the school’s library and student union. A month ago, in what now looks like a mean-spirited leveraged-buyout to alumni and faculty, Joan Weill offered to pony up another $20 million but only if the school changed its name to become: Joan Weill-Paul Smith’s College.
The name-change requires the involvement of the courts. The 50,000 acres on which the college is located was purchased by the school’s namesake 157 years ago and donated to the college by his son, along with a foundation bequest to build the school. The son’s will required that the college “be forever known as ‘Paul Smith’s College of Arts And Sciences,’ ” a pesky detail to people like the Weills. (Sandy Weill streamrolled the repeal of the depression-era consumer safety legislation known as the Glass-Steagall Act in order to cobble together Citigroup, the biggest banking flop in U.S. history and a major contributor to the financial collapse of Wall Street and the U.S. economy in 2008.)
The proposed name-change has set off a firestorm of anger and disgust among local residents, faculty, current students and particularly among alumni, who call themselves, “Smitties.” A Change.org petition has gone up and garnered over 3,300 signatures and fiery language in the comment section. Facebook is also sporting an “Alumni and Friends Against Changing Paul Smiths College’s Name” page. The local newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, has set up a special page for letters to the editor on the subject.
Joan Weill and Paul Smith, the man for whom the school is named, have as much in common as Gucci knockoffs and a handmade quilt. Apollas (“Paul”) Smith purchased the 50,000 acres on which the college is located in 1858. The next year, he and his wife, Lydia, built the renowned Paul Smith’s Hotel next to the beautiful Lower St. Regis Lake. The hotel became a favorite of wilderness buffs and U.S. Presidents, including Calvin Coolidge.
When Paul Smith died in 1912, his son, Phelps, continued running the hotel until it was destroyed by fire in 1930. When the unmarried Phelps Smith died in 1937, he left the bulk of the estate, $2,500,000, for the express purpose of building Paul Smith’s college to honor his father’s name by bringing higher education to the local area. In today’s dollars, that $2.5 million would be $42.3 million, far in excess of what the Weills have donated to the school.
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