<p>Quote: “The person to blame here isn’t the student who wouldn’t donate, but whoever decided “Hey, we won’t donate this extra $20k unless the entire class makes a donation!””</p>
<p>Don’t think for a moment that the Dartmouth development office didn’t have a say in that decision, at the very least a veto that they didn’t use. Development offices have been known to suggest some variation of the matching game to donors, in fact. The point of the participation goal is not to teach students to give back, it is to get students/young alums in the habit of donating to the school, which makes it much more likely they will keep on doing it when they have more $$.</p>
<p>I just read it. She was just as guilty as Dartmouth by being complacent. there were things she could have done to change Dartmouth. If she felt she was powerless to make a difference then she could have gone to another college (Oberlin comes to my mind), but instead she stayed and used an occassion where her classmates were trying to show unity for her own 15 minutes of fame.</p>
<p>oldfort - my take on it was slightly different. I think her reasons were petty and silly - but I respect her right not to make a donation. It’s not a “donation” if it involves coercion and ridicule.</p>
<p>She’s only withholding one dollar. She’s not withholding $100,000. I’d find it MUCH more questionable if the donors chose to withhold $100,000 because of one non-donor (just considering the massive repercussions from such an action is unfathomable to me). </p>
<p>Ultimately, I don’t think it’s ever right to “force” a donation out of someone through guilt and ridicule. Yes, we can argue that she’s had an enormous privilege in being able to go to Dartmouth, but it’s not as easy as “Well if you dislike it, transfer” (it’s very difficult to get into a comparable school with good aid as a transfer, and it’s also very expensive to move. Sometimes it’s easier to just suck it up and finish out your school even if there are things about it you really dislike). We could also argue from a communal perspective, but I also think it’s wrong to force a sense of community upon someone who has, in some way, been hurt by it (especially since I doubt she would have direct control over where her matched contribution would go, financially speaking). </p>
<p>Either way, it’s in extremely poor taste to drag this poor girl’s name through the flames for this.</p>
<p>All this could have been avoided if the adcom had done a better job years ago and admitted someone who themselves had a better sense of community and appreciated the opportunity to attend Dartmouth.</p>
<p>There are very excellent big state universities for those who don’t want to be part of a small exclusive private school environment.</p>
<p>Private schools always have their hands out. No one has to attend them, but they are PRIVATE!</p>
<p>There are many, many other people of both substantial and NO means who would be glad of the opportunity to donate as part of the class.</p>
<p>Her action hit the very heart of the private school system and she should be disrespected by graduate programs and employers. </p>
<p>Speaking as an employer (tiny,tiny though:() and someone who has had hiring authority in large organizations, no one wants people who would do this. Except for a fortunate, statistically insignificant few, no one will pay you to do “your thing”, they will only pay you to do their thing.</p>
<p>BigG: I ask/say this as someone who is genuinely not attacking you but wishes to understand your point of view better (and to potentially clear up any misconceptions I have about the nature of donations and community) – but why should she refuse her degree? It’s expensive to go to college – we’re still paying for the degree. Why are we obligated or responsible for paying extra in the form of a conditional “donation” to a community that we may or may not wish to support? Oldfort earlier made an allusion to tipping, implying that the tip/donation wasn’t “really optional” due to the inherently low wages that waiters receive. Does this, then, imply that the “real” cost of college should be much higher?</p>
<p>Personally, I <em>have</em> donated a small sum to my college as a graduating senior even though I am paying out the nose in loans, although I sincerely did not enjoy my experience at college, and even hated it most of the time. </p>
<p>But if I were lucky enough to be able to donate to the school in a larger capacity, though, I wouldn’t dare attach a “100% participation” condition to it.</p>
<p>She refused a dollar donation to a school that, even if she had been “full pay”, had already invested far more than that in her. Snarky and pathetic, she put the value of her symbolic gesture over the greater good of future underprivledged students. The rich kids can pay cash anyway, even if Dartmouth starts charging for the actual cost of education.</p>
<p>She persisted in attending, why didn’t she transfer out if she found the environment unacceptable? Answer;She wanted the benefits of being part of the “Dartmouth Community” without the responsibility. Good luck to her trying to “network” after this. She was shortsighted, egotistical, and stupid. Oh wait, perhaps she will “fit right in” on Wall Street.</p>
<p>The point of the challenge is to establish the “habit of giving”.The mechanics of meeting the challenge were perhaps handled badly. Public school teachers from Dartmouth are not disrespected for only “kicking in” a few bucks a year.</p>
<p>People are saying she is upholding her principle, by withholding her donation she is showing she is not in agreement with Dartmouth´s policy (about social life, more specificly the Greek life). </p>
<p>In my view, if her principle and values were so important to her, the ultimate protest would have been leaving the institution she didn´t believe in. She didn´t do that because that would have been self sacrifice, and she knew that diploma was worth something, as stated by legendofmax. But instead, she protested at someone else expense - $200K that could have helped few deserving students, or funded few professors´pay. It is always easy when one´s pricinple is at someone´s else expense.</p>
<p>My daughter is working in an office at Cornell, she knows how tight the budget is now. They trust her in working with department´s budget spreadsheet. They are doing everything they can to keep the professors and many not so popular programs going. When I told her about this, she said that 200k would have gone a long way in her budget planning.</p>
<p>That makes more sense to me. Thanks for the clarification. </p>
<p>Overall, I still feel that both sides here are ultimately at fault. I think establishing the habit of giving is best done without “100% participation” conditions that ultimately create pressure (as opposed to incentive), but at the same time I think the student was being difficult for the sake of principle (I am reminded of Mr. Pink’s conversation about tipping from Reservoir Dogs), and that principle was not justified or strong enough to compensate for the enormous positives that come with attending Dartmouth. In other words, I think she has severely misjudged things when she claims that the negatives outweighed the positives. But on the other hand, it is tough to transfer for reasons I stated above (but if things were seriously that bad, transferring would be an option).</p>
<p>Either way, though, I don’t think it’s right to hang her out to dry for it in such an uncivilized way. She may not set a good example for her college, but the author of that blog/paper/etc isn’t exactly taking the high road, either, and the nature of the donation structure also doesn’t help the situation. I feel like everyone’s handled the situation very poorly.</p>
<p>This is not the same circumstance as bullying of a gay or otherwise “different” peer.</p>
<p>This was a political statement which she chose of her own free will to make, as is her right.</p>
<p>She does not get to live free from the consequences of her actions. The blogger had every right to disrespect her in turn.</p>
<p>Ultimately she will find out how marketable her position makes her in the “real world”. Perhaps there are organizations that cherish ingrates.</p>
<p>IMO she is a bad person. The admissions officier who championed her admission should be reviewed for performance.</p>
<p>Excessive excoriation of a callow youth? Oh yeah. Tens of thousands of people just as well qualified as she would have loved to fill the slot she was granted. Note I said granted not earned, and I meant just that.</p>
<p>Attendance at an elite private school is a privilege not a right. The “social contract” is that graduates support the school. She unilaterally abrogated that contract.</p>
<p>I’m tempted to go back in time, do well in high school, go to an ivy league school and then not donate just to spite BigG.</p>
<p>I mean seriously you act like she took a dump on the lawn in front of the Administration building. People with attitudes like yours are the reason people like her don’t donate.</p>
<p>What? I have never hear this. You can spin this anyway you want BigG, and I don’t mean to pick on you, but charitable donations are optional, not obligatory. The one exception is with tips because they are part of a waitress’s salary.</p>
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<p>If Dartmouth wants to establish a habit of giving then they need to establish a habit of being polite. I think that will go a lot further than the latest type of challenge that is fashionable. I know challenges like these are common, I don’t like them when I see them in other organizations either. I never respond to them.</p>
<p>I’d hire this young woman in a minute. She is willing to stand on a principle and stand up to the negative fallout. I never could have done that at her age.</p>
<p>Public ridicule and humiliation is bullying.
For a school to engage in bullying in any way, shape or form is completely unacceptable, regardless of who was bullied. I’m stunned that anyone would think otherwise.</p>
<p>"IMO she is a bad person. The admissions officier who championed her admission should be reviewed for performance.</p>
<p>Excessive excoriation of a callow youth? Oh yeah. Tens of thousands of people just as well qualified as she would have loved to fill the slot she was granted. Note I said granted not earned, and I meant just that.</p>
<p>Attendance at an elite private school is a privilege not a right. The “social contract” is that graduates support the school. She unilaterally abrogated that contract. "</p>
<p>You and oldfort have mentalities reminiscent of Fascist and Marxist-Leninist regimes where volunteering is mandatory or else…regardless of concepts such as reciprocity and the question of whether such institutions have earned the right to demand such “volunteering” in the first place. </p>
<p>Hate to break it to ya, but contracts are a two way street. The institution must also earn their donations. And that earning means exceeding rather than just making do with the bare and IMHO mandated minimums expected: providing a great education and a name.</p>
<p>Call me stupid, but what the heck are you talking about? "</p>
<p>Mandatory “volunteering” for things ranging from donations for various causes to military service in foreign countries were commonly solicited by Fascist and Marxist-Leninist regimes in recent history. </p>
<p>Whether it was “volunteering” to donate money to Nazi run “Winter Relief” to the Soviet and Chinese Communists volunteering their own troops/pilots to help fight the US-led UN during the Korean War…it wasn’t really voluntary because refusing to participate could result in social sanctions or worse. </p>
<p>Similarly, BigG and your comments that the dissenting student should face social sanctions in grad schools, employment, etc betray a similar mentality of feeling that everyone in a given organization should “volunteer” their donations or else face some form of social sanctions…what one of you termed “consequences”. Quoting Big G, one example of such consequences is "…she should be disrespected by graduate programs and employers. ". </p>
<p>Many would consider that an implicit “volunteer or else” social sanction similar to what the above-mentioned regimes used to ensure unquestioning compliance and severely discourage any dissent. Don’t know about you, but I find such tinpot despot mentalities to have no place in American life…</p>
<p>In a “Marxist /Leninist regime”, Dartmouth would be public and not need the support of its alumni.</p>
<p>Taking a chance on depriving future generations of poor students of scholarship money just to “make a political statement” is selfish by any metric.</p>
<p>Her action had every possibility of reducing opportunities for less advantaged students while having NO possibility of “sticking it to the man”. “The man” has got the cash and his kids will do just fine.</p>
<p>She did not do Dartmouth a favor by attending and remaining, quite the contrary. Her record got her into Dartmouth, she could have easily transferred. </p>
<p>It is “obvious to the meanest intelligence” that Dartmouth as an institution would have been better off with any of their myriad other qualified applicants.</p>
<p>While she may object to the "social scene " at Dartmouth, she does seem to have absorbed self centered egocentrism from somewhere to an immoderate degree. “My positions and opinions are more important than the greater good”.</p>
<p>Anyone who would tear down and dergrade an institution that had nurtured their intellectual development for four years is rude and rather stupid.</p>
<p>"Taking a chance on depriving future generations of poor students of scholarship money just to “make a political statement” is selfish by any metric.</p>
<p>Her action had every possibility of reducing opportunities for less advantaged students while having NO possibility of “sticking it to the man”. “The man” has got the cash and his kids will do just fine.</p>
<p>She did not do Dartmouth a favor by attending and remaining, quite the contrary. Her record got her into Dartmouth, she could have easily transferred.</p>
<p>It is “obvious to the meanest intelligence” that Dartmouth as an institution would have been better off with any of their myriad other qualified applicants.</p>
<p>While she may object to the "social scene " at Dartmouth, she does seem to have absorbed self centered egocentrism from somewhere to an immoderate degree. “My positions and opinions are more important than the greater good”.</p>
<p>Anyone who would tear down and dergrade an institution that had nurtured their intellectual development for four years is rude and rather stupid.</p>
<p>Bah! She is a twit. "</p>
<p>Oy! Variation of the diversionary and essentially irrelevant “Think of the poor children” school of argument. </p>
<p>Sorry, but if schools like Dartmouth and Cornell had bothered to do more to ensure students like the non-donating graduating seniors in the report had a great college experience…or tried to reach out to ask them for feedback in the spirit of trying to improve that experience for future students like them, they frankly wouldn’t be in such a fix. </p>
<p>I also find it so interesting that individuals like those dissenting seniors are being held to far higher standards of behavior than large powerful institutions with large loyal alumni-base intolerant of any dissenting voices if folks like yourself and Oldfort are representative of their alumni-bases. </p>
<p>And that level of intolerance is eerily similar to that practiced by tinpot despots throughout history…especially in the last century till the present: The individual must be subsumed to the will of their group/institutions or be sanctioned or worse.</p>