this is emotional investment, Joel Anderson’s column about money and thinking about it. To suggest a subject or get in touch, please email emotional.investment@slate.com.
Amid escalating conflict over protests over Israel’s war in Gaza and concerns about rising anti-Semitism on campus, I have spent several weeks defending major donors who have threatened to cut off their contributions to the university. I was chasing.
Nowhere has this happened more prominently (and predictably) than at Harvard University, home of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. led the charge Harvard University’s first black president, Claudine Gay, is expelled.Nonprofit organization associated with former Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexner He also said that he would sever the relationship. Harvard University was charged with “stalking Hamas attacks.”Mark Rowan at the University of Pennsylvania Urged alumni to “close their checkbooks”” until the school’s president and chairman of the board of trustees resigned for failing to strongly condemn anti-Semitism. And last week, billionaire real estate investor Barry Sternlicht announced that it had “temporarily suspended” donations. The donation was made to Brown University following the school’s agreement to hold a board vote in the fall on Israel-related investment cuts.
I happened to be attending the twice-yearly board meeting of my alma mater’s correspondence school when I read about the drama unfolding at Brown University. As part of my board membership, I expect, if not required, to make an annual contribution. Although I meet these obligations, I have long debated whether my money would be better spent on philanthropic causes, especially when it comes to luxury suites at football stadiums, the best parking, and sometimes the impact over hiring decisions when compared to the much larger donations that come with power.
in the era of Providing records to US higher education institutions, university administrators are struggling with how to manage the expectations that come with that funding. Like almost everything else in our country, our most cherished institutions are increasingly being captured. right-wing politicians who want to dismantle them or Billionaires who are used to having their way.
“Philanthropy and academic freedom collide in ways that can undermine the true purpose and mission of universities.” I have written Nicholas Dirks, President of the New York Academy of Sciences; “We all seem to have forgotten by now the criticisms about the relationship between private profit and higher education.”
A friend of mine has been fundraising for higher education for nearly 20 years. William Broussard currently serves as vice president for university advancement at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point School. When I asked him about his experience working with donors over the years, from his days hosting fish fry fundraisers to dining with billionaire investors, I found his surprising authenticity. I was surprised by the high answer.
“The vast majority of people I have met have a deep and abiding love for these institutions,” Broussard told me on Zoom earlier this week.
He could see that I was suspicious. “You know, I’m a cynic by nature. I’m a very skeptical person,” he said. “But there’s this couple at the university where I work now, and their stories are so rich and powerful, and they’re so humble people. It just so happens that these really nice, extremely generous people… Really Lovely and very generous. There are far more such stories than the opposite. ”
Part of the problem, Broussard said, was my casual research. Much of the media coverage and attention has been focused on elite universities like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, where the drama is unfolding, Broussard writes in his book. ing. Fundraising activities at local public universities.
“Really, when you get to the upper echelons, you start to see different kinds of motivations and motivations,” he said. “And it’s biased because it’s the donors who make up the majority of the coverage, and the donors.”
That’s true. If I ever considered fundraising at other universities, it was mostly focused on Ivy League schools or high-impact boosters like college athletics. Joe Jameel of the University of Texas, T. Boone Pickens of Oklahoma State Universityand Phil Knight of the University of Oregon. I’ve seen what millions of them can do with the schools they fund. Pick and choose coaching candidates, plaster their names on law schools and libraries, and renovate giant football stadiums and basketball arenas.
But I didn’t think about a lot of people outside of billionaires like me. They probably donate a few hundred dollars each year and didn’t expect much more than a boilerplate thank you to the organization and maybe a nice t-shirt. When we asked our readers if they gave money back to their schools, we received a variety of answers. But many acknowledged that the current political climate played a role in their contribution.
“In late 2021, when the university restricted professors from giving expert testimony on voting rights against the governor’s wishes, I stopped,” wrote one reader, University of Florida alumnus Keely Wen. “Universities are public schools that belong to all of our state’s citizens, not just the politicians and their allies in power. I am excited to once again be able to contribute to helping our highly deserving students. I keep waiting.”
Two University of Missouri alumni wrote to me saying they no longer donate for the following reasons: The administration dismantled the diversity program. It took place at the school after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action policies last summer. “I have decided to donate elsewhere until the policy changes and the administration changes as well. I cannot even advise black students to enroll there for journalism,” Harold Bell wrote. . And Porsha McMillan said, “Like many black Mizzou alumni, we love Mizzou, but Mizzou doesn’t love us back. I hope that someday this situation will change, but… I will continue to donate until then.
There is a flip side to this coin. For example, Chrishell Ballinger told me that she donates $50 a year to her alma mater, Stanford University. “I know Stanford has a huge endowment and they don’t need that money,” she said. But she will always remember the generous financial aid that allowed her to complete her degree as a single parent. She said, “I see my nominal gift as a means of repayment and a means of strengthening our metrics of Black alumni engagement.”
Her motivation for giving reminded me of something Broussard said to me. Many donors identify with the bright-eyed teens who come to campus each year. “They just want young people to continue to have the same opportunities that they have,” Broussard said. “Many met their spouses at these institutions. Many of their closest friends are from those institutions.”
That was pretty much the case for me too. When I arrived at my alma mater, raised as a sheltered and only child in the suburbs, I struggled with homesickness for the first few years. I also considered changing schools every semester. Thankfully, during my sophomore year, the head of the journalism department took a liking to me. He found me a scholarship and a $5-an-hour job in the cramped little library in the building.
By the time I started working at the school newspaper, I felt like I had finally found a place on campus and had made some good friends. Memories from those days drive me to want to give back. I send between $500 and $1,000 to the school every October. Some of the money goes to correspondence schools and some goes to scholarships for black students. However, there are some major differences from my conservative private school. Allows Republican members who supported the January 6th riot to remain on the Board of Trustees..
But to be honest, it never occurred to me to use money as an incentive to increase my visibility and influence at my alma mater. It was also because I felt that my contribution was so small that I would not benefit from receiving the money.
Broussard wanted me to disrupt this concept. He told me about a friend of his who worked as a “major football gift officer” at the University of Miami. A long and colorful history of booster support. It is a football powerhouse that has produced 11 Pro Football Hall of Famers and famous alumni like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Broussard thought his friend was hanging out with famous players, but his friend said he was actually spending a lot of time with players who had just played in college.
The largely unknowns were brought together by memories of losses to Navy and Boston College and their contributions to building a program that would win five national championships over 19 seasons from 1983 to 2001. It felt like I had done it. They wanted to invest in something bigger than themselves.
Broussard’s universities are an idyllic vision of higher education: self-sustaining communities of people who believe in something bigger than themselves. Talking with him made me reconsider the value of applying pressure like an Ivy League-educated millionaire. They wanted something from their alma mater and were willing to spend money to make a political point. Perhaps they actually have something to teach the rest of us about how to spend our money when our political ideals no longer align with the place we once considered home. Maybe it is.
One reader, Ashley Nunez, said she refused to donate any money to her alma mater, Houston Christian University. Nunez, from whom she graduated in 2013, officially cut ties with her in 2017 following her resignation as dean. praised the Trump administration’s decision Permits employers not to provide contraceptive coverage over religious or moral objections. “I called the alumni office and said, ‘I don’t want to receive emails anymore,'” Nunez said. While we were on the phone, she checked her email and her account. “And I haven’t received anything from them since.”
Instead, Nunez decided to do something to support Vermont Law School, where she earned her master’s degree last year. It was there, she said, that she finally felt her progressive values aligned with the school she attended. Nunez, 38, was so moved by his connection to her that he included a donation to her school in his will.
It occurred to me that with all the attention right now on donors taking money back from universities, we never thought about the people who gave up on university a long time ago.If they can at least get some schools back for themselves, the Ivy League might be able to learn something from it. we.
