I hope a lot more respond like this. What a scam higher ed has become.
5 thoughts on “When A University Asked An Alumnus For A Donation”
A bit off topic, but certainly an academic scam that has now become a judicial scam; I read Mark Steyn’s latest on the trial of the century, or as the place I found the link put it, “it is taking a century to get to trial”.
As for the topic; I told my alma mater to stuff it when they decided to cancel deals they already made with alumni in a naked effort to get them to contribute more to donations. In one move, they showed their greed was so great that they would ignore past agreements and extort for more money. At the same time, they bragged about building leaders with ethics. Then again, I noted they quit hiring grads on a basis that doing so was “academically incestuous”, so perhaps they were hiring leaders without ethics. Whatever the case; I’ve wished the various students that called on behalf of the University to get their degree and run. I’ve noticed the last couple of times, they’ve said I wasn’t alone in the sentiment.
The students at Caltech placed a large banner draping the famed Millikan Library demanding “Impeach Nixon.”
An alumni donor who had pledged or promised a one million dollar contribution (yes I know, Dr. Evil’s demand of whon-millyohn-dohlars is not all that much money, but this was in the early-to-mid 70’s). A then student at Caltech commented cynically and dismissively about the charge of the students turning away this large sum from a donor with the gibe, “What a piker! He should have announced that he is not giving Caltech ten million dollars while he was at it.”
I guess some around here have the sentiment that all higher education is corrupt and bereft of any social value, but if you are an alumnus asked to contribute, you must have attended some institution and have some credential and some in-residence education experience that has allowed you to contribute in the way that you do.
If an eager current-student phone-bank volunteer calls you asking for a pledge, during the dinner hour or when you are about to turn in to bed at night, tell them that you are making a donation to a peer university.
As a graduate, you are supporting an institution of higher learning, you are not supporting this particular institution of higher learning, you know, the one that has a Weather Underground domestic terrorist as one faculty member and a published author of a Holocaust-denying tract as another. If you not donating to a university, say, that place in Evanston with a domestic terrorist and a Holocaust denier on their faculty sets back the education of that person calling, that person can always transfer to the place getting your money, you know, that one at 35th Street on the South Side that as far as we know does not employ a terrorist or a Holocaust denier.
If the Caltech alumnus who had backed out of donating on account of “Impeach Nixon” had turned around and given that money to another college, any college (apart from Trump University), the cognoscenti could have scoffed, “Ha, Pasadena Bible College, how many Nobel Prize winners are on their faculty?”, but still, the one million that could have supported the Nixon Impeachers went somewhere else, and that definitely gets people’s attention.
Trump U might be a better value.
While I can relate to graduating without a job, and into a down market (I graduated in 2000 with a Comp Sci degree, then the tech sector crashed, and from grad school in ’09 into a tanking economy), I would never go as far as that particular letter-writer went. Honestly, even when I was unemployed I had better ways to spend my time and energy than by writing lengthy tomes telling people why I wasn’t doing something.
I like the idea of telling someone that I’m donating to a rival/peer. Unfortunately, I don’t know of enough peers that would deserve it, so I just donate to charities instead.
I don’t think letters like this will have impact until people make decisions before they enroll and spend that money.
A bit off topic, but certainly an academic scam that has now become a judicial scam; I read Mark Steyn’s latest on the trial of the century, or as the place I found the link put it, “it is taking a century to get to trial”.
As for the topic; I told my alma mater to stuff it when they decided to cancel deals they already made with alumni in a naked effort to get them to contribute more to donations. In one move, they showed their greed was so great that they would ignore past agreements and extort for more money. At the same time, they bragged about building leaders with ethics. Then again, I noted they quit hiring grads on a basis that doing so was “academically incestuous”, so perhaps they were hiring leaders without ethics. Whatever the case; I’ve wished the various students that called on behalf of the University to get their degree and run. I’ve noticed the last couple of times, they’ve said I wasn’t alone in the sentiment.
The students at Caltech placed a large banner draping the famed Millikan Library demanding “Impeach Nixon.”
An alumni donor who had pledged or promised a one million dollar contribution (yes I know, Dr. Evil’s demand of whon-millyohn-dohlars is not all that much money, but this was in the early-to-mid 70’s). A then student at Caltech commented cynically and dismissively about the charge of the students turning away this large sum from a donor with the gibe, “What a piker! He should have announced that he is not giving Caltech ten million dollars while he was at it.”
I guess some around here have the sentiment that all higher education is corrupt and bereft of any social value, but if you are an alumnus asked to contribute, you must have attended some institution and have some credential and some in-residence education experience that has allowed you to contribute in the way that you do.
If an eager current-student phone-bank volunteer calls you asking for a pledge, during the dinner hour or when you are about to turn in to bed at night, tell them that you are making a donation to a peer university.
As a graduate, you are supporting an institution of higher learning, you are not supporting this particular institution of higher learning, you know, the one that has a Weather Underground domestic terrorist as one faculty member and a published author of a Holocaust-denying tract as another. If you not donating to a university, say, that place in Evanston with a domestic terrorist and a Holocaust denier on their faculty sets back the education of that person calling, that person can always transfer to the place getting your money, you know, that one at 35th Street on the South Side that as far as we know does not employ a terrorist or a Holocaust denier.
If the Caltech alumnus who had backed out of donating on account of “Impeach Nixon” had turned around and given that money to another college, any college (apart from Trump University), the cognoscenti could have scoffed, “Ha, Pasadena Bible College, how many Nobel Prize winners are on their faculty?”, but still, the one million that could have supported the Nixon Impeachers went somewhere else, and that definitely gets people’s attention.
Trump U might be a better value.
While I can relate to graduating without a job, and into a down market (I graduated in 2000 with a Comp Sci degree, then the tech sector crashed, and from grad school in ’09 into a tanking economy), I would never go as far as that particular letter-writer went. Honestly, even when I was unemployed I had better ways to spend my time and energy than by writing lengthy tomes telling people why I wasn’t doing something.
I like the idea of telling someone that I’m donating to a rival/peer. Unfortunately, I don’t know of enough peers that would deserve it, so I just donate to charities instead.
I don’t think letters like this will have impact until people make decisions before they enroll and spend that money.