Jeffrey Sachs at UM?

Buried at the bottom of this Star report was this:

Abdullah also announced that the world-renowned Professor Jeffrey Sachs would be the first holder of the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz Chair in Poverty Studies.

Is it just me or does anyone else out there think that this is very strange?

For those of you who don't know who Jeffrey Sachs is, here's useful wiki link. He's currently at Columbia (a top notch US university in New York city) and he's one of the most prominent economist in the US and the world in regards to development / foreign aid / poverty issues. In his Columbia website, he's listed as holding the following 4 positions:

Director, Earth Institute at Columbia University
Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development
Professor of Health Policy and Management
Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

Note that he's already holding a chair (Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development). I'm not exactly sure whether a professor can hold more than one chair in more than one university but from my knowledge of the US system, most prominent academics hold only one chair. One might be a professor in more than one university or different centers but rarely have I encountered a professor who holds more than one chair and at different universities at that.

There are good reasons why this is so. For example, whoever (person or institution) has endowed that chair i.e. paid for a fund to pay the salary and expenses of whomever is holding that chair, has done so with the expectation that the endowment is generous enough to pay for that professor's salary and expenses. The generous benefactor would not want that professor to 'share' his time and reputation between two or more chairs. Universities too would not want to see their chaired professors having another chair in a different, often competing, university. Morever, a chaired professor is expected to contribute to the intellectual development and research agenda of the department or center in which he or she is 'chaired' at. Being chaired at more than one university would obviously make it more difficult for this professor to make an 'honest' intellectual contribution at the universities where he or she is 'chaired'.

For all these reasons, and more, I can't imagine why firstly, UM and the MOHE would even think of trying to get Jeffrey Sachs (unless he's willing to quit Columbia and relocate to Malaysia), secondly, why Pak Lah (or his people) would want to announce it before the details are confirmed. As far as I know, there have been no details of this move announced in the US press or the administrators at Columbia. This might likely turn into an 'egg on my face' scenario. Thirdly, if Sachs is willing to take up this chair (which I don't think he is), he's likely to be in Malaysia for only a few months (at most) out of a year. He's also not likely to stay long term as the chaired professor (most chaired professors in the US stay at the institution where they are chaired until they pass away or retire).

How much intellectual contribution can he make within that short space of time? More importantly, do we really want to expose him to the workings and failings of our system of higher education? Imagine, that if he comes, he will see the poor intellectual environment in our universities not to mention the poor quality of some of the academics he will have to interact with as well as poor facilities and resources. (Maybe this IS a good thing?)

I think the larger question I want to address is this practice of throwing money in the short term hoping to solve long term problems. Tony has blogged about the RM500 million 'donation' to Cambridge, one of my alma maters. In this case, it's the RM20 million that is being spent to set up this Royal Ungku Aziz Chair and Center for Poverty and Development Studies at the UM.

Quick note here: Sachs probably gets paid somewhere in the range of US300,000 to US500,000 which translates into RM1 to RM1.75 million a year (using 3.5RM = 1US). His monthly expenses would probably run into the range of 50,000RM a month (25,000RM monthly rental, car expenses, travel, dining, relocation, computers etc...) or 600,000RM a year. You probably have to spend another 50,000RM to 100,000RM for two or ther research assistants. So you're probably talking about spending somewhere in the range of RM2million to RM3million annually for Sachs. And I haven't even mentioned the costs of setting up the physical and intellectual resources at this new Center for Poverty and Development Studies. If they are not careful, the RM20million endowment (which is supposed to be self-sustaining) will be drawn down to nothing in no time.

These kinds of 'headline' grabbers do not solve any of the structural problems in our local universities which have been discussed many times in this blog. Rather than trying to flush money down the toilet by trying to recruit these 'big names', why not push for substantive structural change instead?