<p>So, asking for donations is like fascism and marxist-leninism? Really? This girl got her picture in the school newspaper; she wasn’t frogmarched to a death camp! </p>
<p>You guys should take a deep breath and think about how crazy you guys seem to someone who is on the outside of this whole rarefied Ivy League atmosphere.</p>
<p>There is a difference between “asking” and “demanding” and/or “coercing”.</p>
<p>It is not a “donation” unless it is freely given.</p>
<p>If there were a way to identify such people before admission to a PRIVATE school, how many people like her would be admitted?</p>
<p>Inclusion in a Dartmouth class is a privlege which she abused by refusal to cooperate for the good of the community.</p>
<p>Kids with their family names on the buildings or perfect SAT’s (realistically not both:)) are routinely turned down for admission.</p>
<p>At this point in her life, her best credential and the most notable thing about her is that she is a Dartmouth graduate. She repudiated that.</p>
<p>Her same academic record at Georgia Southern or even Michigan would not “carry the same weight”.</p>
<p>She owes the school, the school does not owe her. She did not have to stay there four years in that horrible enviornment with the great professors , top notch facilities, and what some consider a vibrant social scene.</p>
<p>Refusal to “give back” even a symbolic dollar is NOT admirable.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This sounds like a good project for a performance art major.</p>
<p>The issue is the act, not the parties involved. The act, unquestionably, is a form of bullying, which is unacceptable in any case. The parties are irrelevant. Makes no difference whether it’s Anytown Community College bullying grads to give to the school or We-Cut-Your-Paycheck, Inc. bullying employees to pledge to United Way.</p>
<p>Bullying by an academic institution is particularly heinous because it signals to students that bullying is acceptable behavior, which directly relates to incidents such as the tragedy at Rutgers. I seriously question the critical thinking skills of anyone who cannot make the connection.</p>
<p>Schools that expect 100% participation in senior giving should add senior gifts to the graduation requirements. See how that flies.</p>
<p>This situation is akin to someone going to order a bunch of food at a great restaurant, but doesn’t bother leaving as much as a penny as tip. Or maybe the person had the meal paid for in full by others, or was partially subsidized – and yet that student still chose not to tip even a penny due to some arbitrary justification (e.g. “The atmosphere was off”) even though they reaped the benefits of the food itself. Even if you go to an upscale restaurant with expensive food, you don’t withhold tip “because they have a lot of money anyway.” And if you ultimately can’t afford to tip, you don’t go to the restaurant to begin with.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, it comes across as a “fairly tacky move.” I don’t think it was right to out her though, either. That blog didn’t reflect very well on the school, and the attitude put forth by the author was pretty disgusting. I think the best solution was to “let bygones be bygones.” I’m sure the non-donating student’s attitude/principles will manifest themselves in other facets of her life naturally such that outing her isn’t even required in the first place.</p>
<p>[“She owes the school, the school does not owe her. She did not have to stay there four years in that horrible enviornment with the great professors , top notch facilities, and what some consider a vibrant social scene.”]</p>
<p>WRONG! That’s holding individuals to a far higher standard than institutions and lets the latter off the hook where accountability is concerned. </p>
<p>If institutions like Dartmouth or Cornell want to increase the alumni giving rate, they need to do their utmost to provide a great college experience beyond the bare minimum of providing a great education and name(Else they have no business being prestigious educational institutions). </p>
<p>If a student did not have a great experience because of actions not due to his/her academic screwups from goofing off, it is IMHO incumbent on the administration, campus community, and the alumni association to politely reach out to such students to get feedback so they can find ways to improve the campus experience for future students. </p>
<p>At the very least, such institutions and their campus community should not lower themselves to single out those who decide not to donate as they did in these cases. Doing so is not only morally reprehensible, but also unprofessional and a stupid way to burn one’s bridges for future potential donations down the line. </p>
<p>[ ["I mean seriously you act like she took a dump on the lawn in front of the Administration building.]
This sounds like a good project for a performance art major. "]</p>
<p>No need for a performance art major. </p>
<p>The institutions in question, the campus community, and some members of the alumni association have already done it through their acts of singling out dissenting students and worse…defending those actions in a manner which would make your average tyrannical tinpot despot…or fictional organized crime figures like Tony Soprano proud</p>
<p>[“This situation is akin to someone going to order a bunch of food at a great restaurant, but doesn’t bother leaving as much as a penny as tip. Or maybe the person had the meal paid for in full by others, or was partially subsidized – and yet that student still chose not to tip even a penny due to some arbitrary justification (e.g. “The atmosphere was off”) even though they reaped the benefits of the food itself.”]</p>
<p>Withholding tip money for poor service is completely legitimate. And that IMHO was what happened when at least one of the alums decided not to donate…as is her right. </p>
<p>As non-profit organizations, these institutions should have “let bygones be bygones” at the very least or ideally…reach out to her to get feedback on how they can do better for future students.</p>
<p>
There is. Simply require that every applicant submit a deposit of X-$ amount which, upon enrollment, will be credited to his/her bursar account as “senior gift.”</p>
<p>Alternately, list “senior gift” as a graduation requirement.</p>
<p>
No it isn’t. It’s akin to a restaurant in which the waiter or maitre d’ announces, “Attention everyone: this customer has not tipped!”</p>
<p>"There is. Simply require that every applicant submit a deposit of X-$ amount which, upon enrollment, will be credited to his/her bursar account as “senior gift.”</p>
<p>Alternately, list “senior gift” as a graduation requirement. "</p>
<p>Funny enough, I do believe there is one educational institution which has that on its application. The Ferenginar College of Commerce, Rent Seeking, and Raiding of which the Ferengi are quite proud. :D</p>
<p>Withholding tip money for poor service is usually not legitimate. Even for poor service, it’s usually customary to at least tip 8-10%… 0% implies that your server did something absolutely egregious. Sometimes you have to determine how much fault can actually be attributed to your waiter/waitress (as opposed to the bussers, cooks/food quality, etc). </p>
<p>The student herself said “Dartmouth does little to encourage a change in the culture of the student body” without realizing that she is PART of that community. Her inactivity is just as worthy of reprehension by her own logic. Just because “the kitchens are dirty” or “frat life is crazy” doesn’t mean you punish at the expense of others.</p>
<p>loveday2: Yes, it is. But you are right that it is also like publicly outing the non-tippers. It’d be like if someone tacked a “List/Pictures of Non-Tippers” to the wall of the restaurant or something. But I am not sure where you disagree with my analogy otherwise.</p>
<p>Alternatively, all of those institutions should just raise the tuition to its full cost, and admit more wealthy students. I wonder how that would make those institutions´social environment better.</p>
<p>
I disagree because I don’t believe the act of giving or tipping is the topic of the thread. This thread is about the method employed to obtain a gift, specifically employing the method of bullying.</p>
<p>Disagreeing with the logic of an analogy because it’s off-topic doesn’t make much sense to me. I’d still argue that it’s on-topic because the analogy is meant to bridge the two situations, which operate under similar premises.</p>
<p>I would agree that bullying someone for a donation or publicly outing her is not the way to go about things. There is a difference between incentivizing and pressuring, and I feel the latter occurred here.</p>
<p>"Alternatively, all of those institutions should just raise the tuition to its full cost, and admit more wealthy students. I wonder how that would make those institutions´social environment better. "</p>
<p>NYU and some other schools already did this. That along with their long history of providing miserly levels of FA/scholarships even to topflight students was one reason it was commonly known among us NYC locals as a rich kid’s school. For those of us with large numbers of friends who attended NYU Stern/CAS…the expense of attending NYU and the surrounding area is such that unless one is wealthy…it can be a miserable socially isolating experience as the large numbers of well-off students…especially out-of-towners want to experience all that NYU/NYC has to offer…which can get quite expensive quickly.<br>
Moreover, while alumni giving rate has improved…NYU still has one of the lowest endowment/student compared to other peer institutions despite having a huge proportion of wealthy students. </p>
<p>Also, having more wealthy students on campus does tend to create more problems of student/parental entitlement for Profs/TAs because “they are paying full tuition”. </p>
<p>Lost count of how many Ivy Profs/TAs have ranted about well-off mediocre students/parents calling or coming to the Prof’s offices to throw temper tantrums because their S or D received a B, C, or even failing grades on an assignment or as a final grade and demand the Prof/TA change it to a higher unmerited grade. </p>
<p>Heck, in the case of one Ivy, they along with other undergrads have mentioned well-off parents being arrogant enough to actually hire lawyers to threaten lawsuits to change that C or B to an -A or A even when it was clear that student turned in complete garbage. </p>
<p>No…if anything…I’d argue the social environment may actually decline if a policy was instituted to admit only or mostly wealthy students.</p>
<p>
I disagree that service “tipping” is analogous to alumni giving, but I’m deliberately choosing not to engage in that debate because I believe the original topic of the thread is important and clearly is becoming lost via diversion to irrelevant asides. Who and whether anyone gives anything to any entity has nothing to do with whether it is acceptable to bully, and more specifically whether it’s okay for colleges to engage in bullying or to facilitate students’ bullying.</p>
<p>
I believe descriptions such as “publicly outing,” “incentivizing” (??), and “pressuring” are spin designed to convey some measure of acceptability to the wholly unacceptable act of bullying. A turd by any other name still stinks.</p>
<p>No, incentivizing means you give someone an incentive to give (such as by matching or by bringing to the forefront the benefits of the education and community in order to remind people of what they’ve been given). Publicly outing someone/pressuring someone is a form of bullying that attempts to threaten some sort of punishment for not donating. I believe bullying/pressuring occurred here when it should have been handled differently.</p>
<p>^^^
I’m well aware of what an “incentive” is and various means of providing same. What was unclear to me from your post was how you were using the term “incentivizing,” given you sandwiched it between the terms “publicly outing” and “pressuring.”
I’m glad to see we’re in agreement that “publicly outing” and “pressuring” are bullying.</p>
<p>Would it be “bullying” to exclude known ingrates from the “admitted students” pool?</p>
<p>Is it “bullying” for an employer to fire someone who doesn’t show up for work? The employer has more power than the employee and is forcing them to do something.</p>
<p>Is it “bullying” to exclude low SAT and low GPA kids from elite schools?</p>
<p>Is it “bullying” to admit one student and deny admission to another even though their stats are the same.</p>
<p>Is it bullying to admit a legacy and deny admission to a student with superior stats in every way save the lack of a relationship with the school?</p>
<p>Is it a courageous act if the perpetuator confidently expects the invincible shield of political correctness to prevent any consequences for that act?</p>
<p>
Problem is, colleges present alumni giving as an indicator of student satisfaction, loyalty and belief in/ support of/ dedication to/ the school’s mission. Generally speaking, the school hopes the public perception will be one of, “Hey, the lion’s share of those who graduate from that school were well satisfied and believe in the school.” </p>
<p>That perception goes out the window if the donations are, or are perceived as, something less than wholly voluntary.</p>