Senior Gift Shenanigans

Harvard’s Senior Gift Committee thinks that graduating students should be hectored until they fork over some cash. Indeed, putting the screws to seniors who have reasons not to contribute—e.g., “I’m broke” or “I didn’t like Harvard”—is the committee’s official modus operandi, revealed in the “Senior Gift Solicitation Survival Guide,” which a committee member leaked to me shortly before spring break. Since being on the receiving end of a shakedown is undoubtedly the more unpleasant experience demanding survival skills, I will give seniors some ammunition of their own. The following advice can help the hopelessly-solicited make it through the hectoring no poorer than they started.

First, seniors donating to other charities might consider pointing that fact out. Be prepared though, because in the Survival Guide the committee compares the senior gift with such causes as “Breast Cancer research” and “AIDS in Africa” on the grounds that “giving to Harvard is perhaps best seen as an investment with significant leverage on society.” In reality, senior gift revenues go to “unrestricted funds” that “allow Harvard to address immediate priorities.” The donor does not decide whether to support, for example, “senior thesis work” in Visual and Environmental Studies or “professionalization of assistant coaching ranks.” None of that has “significant leverage on society,” although it does have significant leverage on very narrow segments of the Harvard population. Students passionate about breast cancer research or AIDS in Africa should reserve their donations for those goal-specific charities.

But seniors will need resolve, because the gift committee resorts to peer pressure. “Stress participation,” the Survival Guide says to solicitors. “Talk specifically about ‘joining with other classmates’ who have made a gift.” Seniors already determined not to give should just say no. They should be forceful about it, too, because the committee also knows how to resist stalling tactics: “By giving now,” according to the Guide, “you won’t be contacted by anyone else this year.” You may, however, be hounded for the rest of your life. Just ask Erik Humphrey Gordon ’95, who fabricated his own death in a “ballooning accident outside Brussels” four years ago to stop Harvard’s development office from harassing him.

Equally unpersuasive points abound in the Survival Guide—for example, that the senior gift makes other students happy here, even if the donor himself is not—and it’s quite clear that the committee exists to bleed seniors of cash: “We want all students to give what they can,” giving being “relative to one’s financial circumstances.” The committee strikes a disturbingly Orwellian chord: “It is important to educate all seniors about proportionate giving.”

One fallacy recurs, over and over again: that Harvard deserves donations because of the cost of administering programs like international need-blind financial aid, study abroad and its own forest. But Harvard does not offer financial aid and forests solely because it cares about its undergraduates; rather, it competes with peer institutions, defraying tuition and offering educational resources in order to lure the most talented students here. If Harvard cannot provide them with the educational experience they want at efficient cost to itself, that’s too bad for Harvard.

Donations should reflect how much seniors have valued their Harvard experience. It is not true that giving indiscriminately, as the gift committee suggests, ensures that Harvard caters to “the priorities of [the College’s] students.” Only the threat of unsatisfied alums refusing to contribute can do that—and indeed, the College’s utter lack of responsiveness on a host of issues suggests that many student “priorities” are simply ignored as the cash keeps cascading in. There is no student center. No libraries are open late at night. Harvard’s vertical dormitories stifle socializing, and there are few common rooms where students actually want to hang out. In the fall of 2002, an economics professor was temporarily removed from his lecture class for what one student called “incomprehensible lectures.” Such low-quality teaching is unfortunately unremarkable at this point. University President Lawrence H. Summers was prompted to comment at the time that teaching quality in general “certainly could be better” at the College—and then do nothing concrete about the general malaise. All students have gotten is a curricular review with no visible results to date, save a few ponderous dialogues.

The Senior Gift Committee could claim that donations will pay for a student center, later library hours and better training for lecturers. But the fact remains that the College has little incentive to use the money for any of those priorities, if alums give blindly and never reflect on the quality of their own experiences as students. To take a pointer from the gift committee’s playbook, think of the “improvements in the undergraduate experience for future students” your refusal to donate can effect. When alma mater comes after the pocketbook, it certainly is time for some reflection: not about whether her slush fund needs some cash, but about whether she has indeed earned lifelong loyalty and love. I believe that she hasn’t, but I respect all seniors’ prerogatives to make their own decisions. The Senior Gift Committee, on the other hand, with its detailed strategy guide for hectoring and harassment, seems not to.

Luke Smith ’04, a Crimson editor, is an economics concentrator in Quincy House.