Just Say No to a Class Gift

THEY sit next to you in class. They eat next to you in the dining halls. They even use the same libraries as you, when they actually have to study or (mirabile dictu) take out a book.

I like to think of them as the future public relations flaks and society fundraisers of America. They are the "300 classmates who have volunteered to work on the Senior Gift campaign," as a xeroxed letter from my Senior Gift Co-Chairpersons so nicely said.

They lost the race for class marshal, they didn't even make class committee, and their busy, busy schedules have an extra hour a week they can devote to an impressive-sounding activity. Of course, it's all done for free, although that extra entry on the resume, something like, "Senior Gift fundraiser: ruthlessly solicited money from extremely unwilling classmates for the Greatest University in the World," is payment enough.

Like all PR people, these senior gift cheerleaders have no important ideas of their own in this task. But they do have the necessary arrogance to assume that their classmates--who have no income yet--are rich enough to give their parents' money to Harvard.

In fact, these Harvard ever-faithful couldn't really come up with any good reasons of their own for giving money. So, instead, they resorted to the next best thing: they sent seniors a red, ready-made gift-giving pamphlet from the Harvard-Radcliffe Fund (based in Holyoke Center, if you had any doubts about who's really running the show)--entitled, interestingly enough, "Tough Questions."

APPARENTLY, the gift is money donated by the graduating seniors to improve undergraduate life--faculty salaries, the House system, scholarships, and so on. I should give this money, I am told, because "future students of Harvard-Radcliffe deserve your support."

The University calls this money "unrestricted income," to differentiate it from most of the endowment, which is restricted by its donors for specific purposes. This means that even though Harvard has enough money in its endowment to, say, pay every American $20, run Eastern Airlines and give the unions lots of money, or buy a fleet of Stealth B-2 bombers, the University cannot: a) renovate the stinking bathroom in your suite, b) pay junior faculty more since they won't be getting tenure anyway, c) subsidize extracurricular or certain academic programs.

Why am I supposed to give this money? Out of some sense of gratitude that I was allowed to spend my college years at Harvard. Harvard allowed its seniors "The emotional and intellectual growth they experienced, the lifelong friends they made, the horizons opened to them both in the classroom and outside," claims the Harvard-Radcliffe Fund. None of these things would have happened at other colleges, I suppose, especially those without the charming class gift agents swarming about for money, like bees on honey.

THIS is not to say that problems in need of financial remedy do not exist at Harvard. I just wonder why I have to give $25 (the recommended amount, "payable by August 31, 1989," according to my IRS-sounding class gift agents). I won't even be making any money for three or four more years.

Harvard has, of course, anticipated this query. And the answer is: "The philosophy pursued by The Harvard-Radcliffe Fund may be summed up by an old maxim: each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs." I just wish I knew Harvard was out in the forefront of the Marxist Leninist movement before I came here. But I have to admit, I love the picture of 300 class agents, palms held upward, chasing their classmates about the Yard spouting communist doctrine.

These donations wouldn't make much difference anyway. If half of all seniors each gave $25, the total Senior Gift would still only amount to $20,000. That is, quite frankly, peanuts, in a Faculty of Arts and Sciences annual budget of more than $700 million. I guess Harvard could use the money to buy two more of those Johnston gate guardhouses though.

Why does the University push the Class Gift at all? So it can instill in us the habit of giving money to Harvard. Our $25 today will mean nothing, but when one of us becomes head of IBM, then his or her multimillion donation to Harvard will have been worth it. Harvard is also training its future alumni old boy/girl network to do its fundraising. Guess who they are.

THERE are, of course, those who would rather you give money to the recently-resurrected Endowment for Divestiture (E4D) This is, in some ways, even worse than giving money to Harvard directly. This mind-set of giving Harvard money is still created, but it is wrapped up in the pseudo-issue of divestiture. Supporters for E4D should realize that their $25,000 provides not a single ounce of leverage on the University.

If you give money to E4D, you're just giving Harvard money anyway (or Phillips Brooks House, if Harvard doesn't divest by 2003). But I suppose E4D acts as a slave for those rich limousine liberals who want to give some of their millions to Harvard, without offending their sensitive, trendy, politically-correct activist consciences.

Seniors, if anyone asks you for money, just say no. After all, after four years of poor food, poor housing, a miserable gym, untenured junior faculty, all for the bargain price of $72,000, you might as well spend some money on yourself.