Every year, the senior class presents a class gift to the University on its way out the door, often in the form of a scholarship. Such a tradition is fairly common, and provides a way for students to give a little something to the school that has given them so much (at least until the phone calls from the Alumni Association begin). Though a senior class gift is of course worthwhile, and the efforts of those involved with organizing and planning the gift are certainly commendable, the way in which the funds are raised for this gift are worth a closer look.
One main way that those in charge of the senior class gift have been approaching seniors for money is suggesting that they donate whatever’s left of the $200 deposit made by each student (or, more likely, their parents) at the beginning of freshman year, claiming that it’s almost like “free money.” This tactic has also been used off campus, such as at senior events at Blue Hill, perhaps with the hope that alcohol will lower inhibitions about giving away “free money” (and perhaps also to increase the appeal of the “free” t-shirt that comes with a donation).
In addition to the ethical problems this tactic engenders, it also raises the issue of financial short-sightedness. Though many students at the University are quite well-off financially, the $200 that students are being asked to just sign over could be a loan payment for a student on financial aid or used towards a significant portion of books for a semester. The whole idea smacks of the financial elitism that University students are regularly accused of, and also seems inconsiderate to those for whom this $200 may be very important.
Also, presumably parents with the means to donate money to charity or other funds do so on their own, to organizations that they choose. Deciding that their money should go to something they won’t even find out about is disingenuous; at the very least, parents should at least have to agree that the extra money go to the scholarship, rather than being kept in the dark about it completely. Furthermore, the gift seems to lose something when it moves from being a gift of the senior class to being a gift funded by money that the parents of seniors presumably forgot about. As we are a school with plenty of well-to-do individuals, hopefully the class gift could be put together without resorting to exploiting this quirk in the way the school’s finances are set up.
There is certainly nothing wrong with the senior class goal of adding another scholarship to help students deal with the University’s increasingly strenuous financial demands, and it would be worthwhile for seniors who have the means to help donate to the future scholarship fund of the class of 2006. But as important as properly funding this gift is, it is equally important to look out for the interests of students and their parents by raising the money in an appropriate fashion. Though getting drunk seniors to sign away $200 might be the easiest way to gather money, it is certainly not the most ethical or honest way to go about it. The gift is worthwhile in and of itself; hopefully, that should be enough to drive a successful project forward, rather than appealing to the inebriated. What’s unfortunate is that the senior class gift committee is doing so much good work otherwise, and hopefully in the future, that good work won’t be overshadowed by questionable fundraising techniques.