College Try: Chicago's Stock Sale

August 21, 2009, The Wall Street Journal — College endowments, reeling from their worst annual performance in decades, are questioning their faith in investments that fueled huge returns before backfiring last year.

The crisis of confidence has been playing out at the University of Chicago, in a previously unreported battle that divided the overseers of the nation's 10th-largest university endowment, a committee that included hedge-fund managers Sanford "Sandy" Grossman and Cliff Asness. Amid last fall's market turmoil, the committee argued over whether their portfolio's assets, $6.6 billion in June 2008 but falling fast, were too risky and volatile.