University of Bridgeport, Unification Church split approved by all sides
CT Post
By Linda Conner Lambeck Tuesday, May 28, 2019
A unanimous decision to expunge any reference to the Professors World Peace Academy or Unification Church from the University of Bridgeport bylaws was done to set the record straight, according to an architect of the decision.
“Bottom line, we made official what has been truth for a long time,” Robert Berchem, a Milford attorney and chairman of UB’s Board of Trustees, said Tuesday.
Berchem has been on the board for about a decade and its chair for the past year. In all that time, and probably longer, he said the university has not seen a dime of money from the church, which is officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
In 1992, the PWPA, which was founded by the Unification Church, gave the university an initial $50,000 loan that was to be forgiven in eight years. In exchange, the PWPA had the right to approve a majority of UB trustees and have a UB president of its liking.
The deal kept the financially broke UB open. It also set off a firestorm of controversy and concern from those who questioned the motives of what many considered a cult.
By 2002, the loan had not only turned into a gift, but had grown to $113 million. As of a year ago, only a handful of trustees were still being named by the PWPA, according to Gordon Anderson, U.S.A. Secretary General of the PWPA, and a UB trustee until a year ago.
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Berchem said every change UB has made since he has been on the board has been to improve the university. He was chair of the presidential search committee that brought Laura Trombley to campus a year ago. He took over as board chair with the passing last year of Frank Zullo last May.
Since Trombley arrived, the university has reorganized academic programs and dropped unprofitable majors.
Several members of UB community who would not speak for attribution said on Tuesday the decision was a welcome one. “They needed to do something public to explain the church is not here, to inform the greater world that they don’t own the university and are not part of it,” one staffer said.
Read full story here:
https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/UB-Unification-Church-split-approved-by-all-sides-13902023.php
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