UNH Blasted for Spending $1M on Football Scoreboard

DURHAM, NH — The University of New Hampshire is under fire this week for spending $1 million of a $4 million donation from the school’s long-time library on a 30 foot by 50 foot video score board for its new multi-million football stadium – while only using $100,000 of the donation to the school’s library, according to press reports. Last year, according to Inside Higher Education, Robert Morin, a 1963 graduate of UNH and a librarian at the school’s Dimond Library for nearly five decades, pass away, and bequeathed his entire $4 million estate to the school. The money – according to the school – was designated for any usage. So officials spent $2.5 million on a career center and $100,000 on the library. Also, unbeknownst to anyone, until yesterday, the school also spent $1 million of the money on a massive video screen for the university’s new $25 million football stadium.

During the last 24 hours, many alumni, friends of Morin, and even Gov. Maggie Hassan, D-Exeter, have expressed disappointment at the decision to spend so much money on a video screen when students in the state’s university system are paying some of the highest public college tuitions in the United States (and, historically, always have).

“It is concerning and perplexing that the University of New Hampshire decided to use part of this generous donation on an expensive new scoreboard,” Hassan said in a press statement on Sept. 16. “There were much more appropriate uses for these funds – such as the library and career center that received part of the donation, the new science building that the university wants or holding down the cost of tuition.”

Erika Mantz, the director of UNH Media Relations, stated that historically, the school had invested “very little in athletics facilities, and it showed,” noting that it took decades to expand and renovate Wildcat Stadium, which was first constructed in 1936. Now, she stated, students have a stadium that is “superb,” but actually “very modest compared to others in the country” and one that Granite Staters could be proud of.

“Yes, we have heard from people who disagree with how the gift was used,” she stated online. “We respect and acknowledge that feedback but it does not change our decision. Matching infrastructure to UNH’s aspirations and investing in student career success are two of our highest strategic priorities that we have communicated with our board and our campus community.”

Mantz added that despite being asked many times by his financial advisor to not donate the funds to the school unrestricted, Morin did so. Only a small portion was designated specifically for the library, she added.

Hassan said that while she was proud of the bipartisan work done to hold down the cost of higher ed, including freezing tuition, “I strongly encourage the university’s leadership to be more thoughtful when determining how to use donations such as this.”

The New Hampshire Republican State Committee, however, criticized Hassan for taking credit for freezing tuition in the system while also missing 18 of 19 University System of New Hampshire's Board of Trustees meetings during her tenure in office.

"Gov. Hassan's sudden interest in how UNH is allocating funds is ironic, given that she has skipped almost every single university system board of trustees meeting over the course of her entire time in office," said chairman Jennifer Horn. "Just like a typical Washington politician, Hassan issues indignant statements when it's politically convenient, but doesn't bother to show up when it actually matters."

According to the UNH Stadium project page, about $10 million of private and corporate support was expected to be raised for the project.

Morin, according to his obituary, started working at the library in 1965 as a cataloger. He retired in 2014, after nearly 50 years of entering information about books, DVDs, CDs, and sheet music, into the Dimon Library’s catalogs. During his time working for the university, he drove a 1992 Plymouth to work, was thrifty, and passed away a multi-millionaire.

Read a full report on Morin and the controversy at InsideHigherEd.com.