Seniors' Generosity To Harvard Soars

Senior class gifts to the Harvard College Fund, which hit rock bottom for recent years in 1970, have rebounded to what appears to be a record high total this year.

Seniors have so far pledged a total of $13,340 a year for the next three years, with at least a month of soliciting left. Last year's class pledged a total of only $7500. Rufus W. Peebles Jr. '61, associate director of the Fund, said yesterday he is "confident" of beating the record total of $15,000 pledged by the class of 1968.

This year's $13,000 represents pledges from 31 per cent of the class. Last year's complete drive received pledges from 40 per cent of the class. In contrast, 1968's record total came from 70 per cent of the class, and in 1967, 80 per cent of the class pledged $9283, Peebles said actual contributions in the first year following graduation are usually at least 90 per cent of what has been pledged.

Digging for Riches

Total collections for the College Fund are $422,000 ahead of last year, and $100,000 ahead of the record year of 1969, with $2,525,000 collected so far, according to Schuyler Hollingswonth '40, executive director of the Fund.

Peebles was quick to attribute the new-found success in solicitation of seniors to "good staff work," but added that a changed mood at Harvard might be partly responsible. "The change in mood has allowed people the freedom to express a loyalty to Harvard thatwould have been out of fashion two years ago," Peebles said.

He said the widespread publicity concerning Harvard's increasing financial embarrassment might also have loosened some purse strings.

Fund officials are hoping that pledges will continue to come in through the rest of this month. Twenty class agents and 100 volunteer solicitors have been working since February, but many had theses to write and didn't begin working hard until after spring recess.

"Part of the reason for the decline of the last two years," Peebles said, "is that April has been somewhat disjointed and our solicitations were never really finished. If everyone in the class were solicited, I'm sure we could get pledges from 75 per cent of the class."

Clubbies

Besides the class agents and solicitors, the senior class fundraising apparatus includes a Special Gifts Committee, which determines and solicits from those seniors they think can contribute more than $100 a year for the next three years. Peebles said -the committee uses such criteria as whether or not a student is a member of a club, and whether he drives a car.

"We figure a guy who drives a Chevrolet can give more than a guy who walks, and a guy who drives a sports car can give more than the one in the Chevy," Peebles said.

Peebles said that a good return from the senior class is an important selling point in encouraging contributions from alumni, as well as a way to get people into the habit of giving early in their real world careers.

In a letter to the senior class, first class marshal Bennett H. Beach '71 suggested that each senior ought to be able to contribute at least $25 a year. The largest individual senior pledge to the Fund so far is $2500.