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UW Press $2.8 million in debt
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by Michael Gendall
Thursday, September 8, 2005
The University of Wisconsin Press, following a costly five-year stint with former Director Robert Mandel at the helm, is mired in a $2.8 million debt, UW Press officials have confirmed to The Badger Herald.
Mandel racked up the deficit while more than doubling the number of books published during his tenure, and said in an interview he now regrets leaving his former job as director of Syracuse University Press.
Despite the $2.8 million debt figure — described by University of Illinois Press Director Willis Regier as "extraordinary" for "a press the size of Wisconsin" — Mandel is optimistic that the books he published in his five years as director will eventually make enough money to cover the press' deficit.
Ohio State University Press Director Malcolm Litchfield, however, said the financial troubles at the UW Press will not be easily overcome. UW Press officials have defended the deficit in part by noting the vast quantity of unsold books waiting on store bookshelves.
"The [UW] Press is saying that it's not really all that bad because [it has] $2.4 million worth of books just waiting to sell. But what if they don't sell?" Litchfield stated via e-mail. "In general, university presses are notorious for overvaluing their inventory, and doing so is an easy way to mask long-term problems."
High expenses
According to Litchfield, Mandel was unsuccessful in his tenure because he simply spent more money than he had available; therefore, the UW Press could not continue to publish so many titles and be financially stable.
"In the early '90s, the OSU Press ran up a cash deficit of close to a million dollars, and the university took a year to decide whether or not the press should be closed down because of that kind of irresponsibility," Litchfield said in an interview.
According to Regier, the major complaint against Mandel inside the university-press community was that "he hired a bunch of series editors that were bringing in manuscripts that were not selling."
When answering questions regarding any unusually large expenses which may have contributed to the press' debt, Mandel identified "outside acquisitions person" Irene Vilar, whom the press paid roughly $23 an hour, according to Mandel, for her expertise in Latin American studies.
"That was for a series," Mandel said. "One of the problems in that series is you have to know Spanish. You have to speak Spanish."
Mandel said Vilar, with whom he worked previously at Syracuse University Press, was employed by the UW Press as an intermediary to literary agents and foreign publishers, while also helping secure translation grants.
According to Interim UW Press Director Sheila Leary, Vilar was paid a total of at least $97,000 while she worked out of her home in Colorado from 2001-2005. Vilar, who Leary said is a "published author," is no longer employed by UW Press.
"To be paying someone $23 an hour is a lot in academics," Regier said. "Typically, a university press has to obtain its manuscripts ready or nearly ready for editing — otherwise we can't afford to do it. To put that kind of money into prep work, particularly for Latin America, strikes me as generous."
Litchfield said he has never been involved with hiring someone on an hourly basis to help acquire books and therefore has no idea whether or not this figure is high.
Special consultant
After Mandel and UW Graduate School Dean Martin Cadwallader mutually decided on Mandel's resignation back in May, Cadwallader appointed Mandel to a one-year position as special consultant to the graduate school, without decreasing his annual $141,407 salary.
"I think it was graceful for them to permit him some place to go while he sorts out the rest of his career," Regier said. "The university has not embarrassed Bob Mandel, [but instead] they have treated him, as far as I can tell, respectfully amid this crisis."
Mandel said his salary is a testament to the quality of the research work he is doing for the UW Press in his new position.
"I'm working every day," Mandel said. "Right now, I'm doing a lot of research into electronic publishing. I've come up with partial reports [and] I've given reports every month."
Cadwallader said the graduate school, which oversees the UW Press, is paying Mandel for his expertise to "help us work out where we should be" in the future.
"For someone who's got the skills he has, it's not a good fit anymore," Cadwallader said when asked why Mandel is not fulfilling the role of press director.
Mandel deferred some of the responsibility for the debt to Cadwallader's predecessor, Graduate School Dean Virginia Hinshaw, who Mandel said promised him upon his hiring that the UW Press could afford to go into debt for five or six years with the ultimate goal of expanding into one of the top 10 university presses in the country.
Moving on
The new strategy at the University of Wisconsin Press is to downsize, and Leary said the press has to be "more conservative" and "less experimental and less daring" than it was during the Mandel years.
"The university has said that they just can't sustain that kind of debt," Leary said.
Dean Cadwallader, who appointed Leary to her new position, echoed Leary's words when he said that "the idea is to scale back again and produce fewer books."
Despite his position as advisor, Mandel cannot be counted among the supporters of this new strategy, arguing the new plan will only maintain a "low visibility."
"I'm not sure what will happen as a result of this downsizing because I'm not sure whether downsizing is the right direction," Mandel said.
Mandel said his current position as special consultant to the graduate school expires in May 2006, and that he will leave the university at that point "unless they want me to stay on."
Mandel also said he was not involved in the hiring of Sheila Leary as interim director and does not anticipate to be consulted concerning the search for a permanent press director — a search Cadwallader said will not commence for at least another year.
"If Cadwallader wants my advice, I'm sure he'll ask for it," Mandel said.
Leary, who has worked for the UW Press since 1990, said her interim position will last for "at least a year, maybe even two years, and then there will be a national search and I presume that, at that point, I will want to be a candidate."
Regier called it "a very wise decision" to hire Leary as interim press director to help the press "get through a very difficult period."
Regier also acknowledged Cadwallader's decision to wait at least a year to begin a national search for a permanent director is uncommon, but given the circumstances, "it would be difficult to hire a good candidate from outside" at this point in time.
"It's a tough job," Regier said. "The kind of scrutiny the press is going to be under for the near future is going to make it all the tougher."
Syracuse University Press had no comment regarding Mandel.
