>"The pending purchase rankles some Westminster faculty and alumni, who question what a longtime maker of steel spans knows about running an elite school whose choirs sang with maestros Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini and Seiji Ozawa."

First, that's quite racist.

Have they ever questioned what do the US analogous of "longtime makers of steel spans" and ex-robber barons that have been their patrons, and which have dedicated buildings and schools and auditoriums named after them, know about elite schools?

Vanderbilt, for one, was a poorly educated steamboat and railroad tycoon.