With the state budget in free-fall and further cuts looming, the University has undertaken an ambitious plan to stem the hemorrhaging of money. The campaign aims to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through an aggressive round of passing the hat among wealthy alumni and other donors. “Wish lists” of necessary — or desired — funding are being drawn up by all the academic departments to be presented to prospective donors.
We are fearful that this may reward legislators and taxpayers for refusing to support higher education. If the University is successful at raising private money, the state could cut more and more — and it would become a private university. At the same time, we are heartened that in this time of severe budget meltdown, the University is doing something — anything — to help keep itself running financially.
But we have a request for the potential donors. There is an enduring perception that one of the main reasons donors give to the University is because if they give enough money, they, too, can have a building named after them.
It’s sad that someone would donate money to an institution as an ego-booster and mark of recognition rather than from the simple desire to give back and to aid the students attending. Charity, if it’s truly charitable, should be anonymous.
We also can’t help thinking, in this same vein, about Grayson, er, McKenzie Hall. This increased reliance on private benefactors, while it may be politically necessary, could conceivably open the University up to another scandal like the one weathered last year when it was discovered that some $850,000 donated by University alum Jeffrey Grayson was actually stolen.
We were heartened to see that students have a voice in the process — on the wish list committee — and that some items on the wish lists include additional student scholarships and endowed chairs to help boost the salary of select professors. But given the ever-increasing cost of attending the University and the ongoing brain drain of some of our best professors to better-paying jobs, these wishes aren’t enough.
Rather than constructing another building that accommodates over-enrollment, just so there’s a place for a donor to plunk his or her name, why can’t the University find real charitable souls who will help fund the education of the students directly?
We’d like to see money raised to directly subsidize the most popular majors — or the least popular, for that matter — by increasing professor salaries, providing additional classified staff support and offsetting the cost of tuition in those programs.
In Portland, when it looked like after-school sports programs were going to be cut for lack of funding, a number of well-heeled donors stepped in and donated enough to keep the programs running. They didn’t donate for recognition, and no buildings are named after them. Their monument is in the children who now are playing sports because of them.
Donors to the University’s comprehensive campaign should follow the Portland example.