The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article on Oct. 24 about two Ivy League schools that were shaming seniors who did not donate to their senior class campaign. Upon reading the headline, I immediately thought of my alma mater, Cornell, which happened to be one of the schools mentioned.
The article, written by a Cornell class of 2010 graduate, discussed how at Dartmouth (the other guilty party) only one student didn’t donate to the class campaign and was publicly ousted in the school newspaper and harassed by students who would have donated on her behalf (she declined their offers) in order to meet 100% participation and therefore have the Class of 1960 donate $100,000 in response. (They ended up donating, despite the 99.9% participation.)
What was supposed to be a nice gift from young alumni, turned into something somewhat mean and humiliating.
The article also talks about how at Cornell sororities are encouraged to meet 100% participation in their senior pledge classes by Panhellenic. Sorority listservs did a similar thing to the Dartmouth newspaper, by letting members know exactly who had yet to donate. One Cornell sorority member reported that the more people who bugged her to donate, the less interested she was in doing it. Guess for some people, non-stop calls and emails are not a successful way to collect donations.
This article showed that a lot of the time students who did not love their college as much, were the ones not donating and therefore being harassed to do so.
I personally was happy to give to the Class of 2010 campaign. I donated the amount asked of me the first time I was called. I encouraged my friends to do so, and yes, I did question the ones who didn’t. We all loved Cornell, why would we not donate? Fortunately my friends did all end up donating in the end — something that made me happy. But I understand that my reaction to the call to donate maybe have been extremely different had I not had an amazing, positive experience while at Cornell.
I’d love to hear your opinions of these senior class campaigns. Do you think seniors should make a small donation to their school before graduating? How far should students push other students to donate? Was the Dartmouth newspaper and the Cornell sororities wrong to out those who did not make a donation? Weigh in below!