The CETI project to privatize the commuinications network of the California State University is in the news these days. Let's learn what CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz, the man behind CETI, has to say.
(IBM Think Magazine, Fall, 1997)
(The San Diego Union-Tribune December 5, 1997)
Munitz and the academic way of life
"The trouble is that most of CSU's own staff are graduates of research universities. They bring with them a fixed idea of what a university is all about, and are unexcited by what they consider their chancellor's unglamorous goal. 'I worry about this,' Mr Munitz admits. 'Their lifestyle, values and mission are exactly the opposite of the mission we are proposing.'"
(The Economist 5/10/97)
Munitz and the discipline of the market
"One way or another, the discipline of the market is coming to campus. 'Higher education will be the great restructuring story of the 1990s,' says McPherson. Adds Barry Munitz, chancellor of California's state university system: 'Trustees and parents are saying, 'We went through it in business. Don't tell us you can't.'' The new order threatens the sacred cows of academia, particularly the power of professors, but it also gives customers more clout. In business, that lowers prices, creates popular new products, and eliminates archaic work rules - not a bad curriculum for the classroom."
(Fortune, May 1, 1995)
The Chancellor knows there are good professors, and there are bad professors:
"The militancy of certain faculty also intensifies the challenges of shared governance, Munitz added, being careful to draw a line between the great majority of 'very excellent' faculty devoted to academic duties and a separate cadre who wield the political power within institutions. 'This is a group of people who want to be Albert Schweitzer in the morning and Jimmy Hoffa in the evening,' he said. 'That's the difficulty; it slows down the process.'"
(National Conference on Trusteeship, April 15, 1997)
How the Chancellor will reward good professors:
"'Our assets are human capital,' says Barry Munitz, chancellor of the California State University system. 'We should be using them on TV, on computers, at night and in different class sizes. We've been way behind the curve of both business and government.'"
(Forbes, November 18, 1996)
The Chancellor's vision of the student:
"CSU Mentor also has a matchmaking component -- an idea touted by CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz for the past five years because of something he saw at a dog show. 'They had this computer that asked you 10 to 12 questions about yourself, and they matched you up with animals that fit your profile,' Munitz said. 'I thought, `Why can't we do this for college campuses?'' "
(Orange County Register March 17, 1997)
The spirit of a liberal arts education:
"Munitz wants to try charter experiments at a new campus to be built on the site of the U.S. Fort Ord Army base near Monterey, as well as at either Humboldt State U in Arcata or at Calif. Polytechnic State U in San Luis Obispo.…The chancellor's ideas for the new college at Fort Ord include … the use of federal funds to pay "junior carpenters" and "junior electricians" who would help build the campus. As students, these workers would be offered additional credit for their participation in the project."
( Daily Report Card, February 5, 1993)
The Chancellor knows why CSU needs the CETI corporate
partners: 
"This systemwide approach evolved into CSU's Integrated Technology
Strategy. 'Integrated,' says Munitz, 'means common infrastructure, common
delivery system, complete interoperability.' It also means negotiating,
shaping and operating school functions -- administrative, academic, classroom
and distance learning -- as a collective entity….A team of technology partners
will soon come on board to address these issues with CSU. The team will
also, as Munitz foresees it, 'act as the mediating, consulting agent for
this massive, integrated system.' Massive is the operative word. Politically,
economically and logistically, the size and scope of CSU's undertaking
is unprecedented in US higher education."
(IBM Think Magazine, Fall, 1997)
Munitz and the Truth
"Federal savings and loan regulators are investigating whether California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz "may have committed criminal violations" by giving false statements to investigators looking into the $1.6-billion failure of a Texas savings bank, court documents show.
"Before he was named chancellor in 1991, Munitz had been a director of the Houston-based thrift, United Savings Assn. of Texas, and vice chairman of its parent company. As reported, the parent company, Maxxam Corp., its chairman, Charles Hurwitz, and Munitz were named in a civil suit filed in December by the thrift office. The suit accuses them of self-dealing and causing the thrift's failure in 1988. It seeks recovery of money a federal insurance fund had to pay….
"The thrift office has attempted to determine to what extent Hurwitz's close business relations with Drexel and its former junk bond chief, Michael Milken, created a conflict of interest that led to financial decisions harmful to the thrift. Drexel held a minority stake in United Savings.
"Notes by FDIC lawyers who debriefed Munitz during the September 1992 meeting indicate that Munitz said Hurwitz's relationship with Milken was a big factor. No court reporter, however, took down Munitz's statements at the meeting, and the thrift office subpoenaed the notes of Munitz's lawyers, who were also present, to see if they corroborate the FDIC lawyers' account. Later, in sworn testimony before a court reporter in 1995, Munitz denied to investigators that he had any knowledge that United Savings' purchase of junk bonds was influenced by Hurwitz's business ties to Drexel."
(Los Angeles Times, July 12, 1996)
The Chancellor Quashes his Critics (with a little help from a Circuit Court of Appeals):
"The following interchange took place between OTS and Munitz:
Q: Did Hurwitz ever mention to you that [the Association's] purchase of junk bonds from Drexel was helpful to MCO's relationships with Drexel?
A: No.
Q: Did anyone ever tell you that?
A: No one ever told me that. People have asked me that, but no one has ever told me that.
Before the deposition, OTS obtained notes of Munitz's prior testimony from two of the three FDIC lawyers who had been present at the FDIC interview. The FDIC attorney notes suggest that Munitz may have answered the same question somewhat differently in his FDIC interview:
Hurwitz Motivations--
1. Peer group pressure--"who was going down & who was still alive."
2. Did not want to hurt his reputation among peers and Milken [a former officer of Drexel].
3. Concern about net worth maint. risk--to MAXXAM.
4. [Association] was "ticket to ride" with Drexel.
Because of the purported inconsistency, OTS ordered Buxton, Nelson, and Vinson & Elkins to produce all documents relating to the FDIC interview….
"That brings us to appellant's claimed need. The government explains that it needs the notes to explore the inconsistencies in Munitz's FDIC and OTS interviews. But two of the three government lawyers present at the FDIC interview have already given their notes to OTS, and therefore the Vinson & Elkins notes would serve only to reinforce supposed inconsistencies about which OTS already knows. The government also tells us that it needs to discover the facts surrounding the debacle of the Association, yet it has not identified any new information that it hopes to find in the Vinson & Elkins notes. Appellant's need, as we understand its position, reduces to nothing more than its desire to find corroborating evidence. It is the rare case where corroborative evidence can be thought "necessary." It is often thought cumulative and, as such, a trial judge has wide discretion to exclude it. If corroboration were sufficient need to overcome the work-product protection, what would be left of the second part of the standard, undue hardship? Undue hardship asks whether the moving party can acquire the information any other way; by definition, a party seeking corroborative evidence has already found a way to get the same information."
"The judgment of the district court (denying summons enforcement) is affirmed."
Director, Office of Thrift Supervision v. Vinson & Elkins, LLP, 124 F.3d 1304; (Ct. App. D.C. Cir., October 10, 1997)
Compiled via internet searches by Robert Daniels, Professor
of Accounting, San Francisco State University. E-mail rdaniels@sfsu.edu