Column: 'I'll never give a cent to Duke'

I have a million-dollar question. Actually, it is probably worth more than that. How does this university ever expect to raise money from the current generation of Duke students? I am not unique in having reason to believe that this may be a problem. Speaking with other seniors regarding a donation to the annual class gift, the most common response I hear is laughter, followed by some smart remark--"I'll never give this university a cent," "I've already paid too much as it is," "Duke can take it out of my parking tickets," etc. The tenor of most of these discussions suggests the alumni affairs and development people may have some difficult days ahead.

And why shouldn't they? Duke squeezes money out of students at every chance, and at the same time, most students, when they look around, witness money being constantly wasted on stupid things--residential life programs no one comes to, administrators who don't appear to do anything, over-funded pet projects, and SUV police cars to name a few. The campus points system ensures that all of us living on campus have to buy a few thousand dollars of over-priced food. Few will ever collect close to a full return on the student health fee. Almost no one even knows what the health fee covers. (Are you aware that you get one free physical per year?) Tuition has risen at rates much higher than inflation over the course of my own undergraduate career; and now, with the markets in disarray and building projects up the wazoo, who knows how fast tuition will rise in years to come. In the last decade the campus has been socially castrated with no-keg rules, the closing of the Hideaway, event over-management and the dissolution of more than a few selective groups.

Clearly, however, the greatest hostility to Duke students comes from Parking and Transportation Services--the University's real fundraiser. These are the people who start enforcing new parking rules the second night of exams (actually happened) and have an appeals process that is about as accountable as Middle Eastern dictators. True story: a few weeks ago the traffic people informed me that they just discovered a three-year-old ticket for which they forgot to bill me. When I called up and asked about a statute of limitations the lady chuckled and told me they ticket family cars when they come through Duke on a college visit and nab the vehicles when they return years later as a student's car. This sort of middle-finger mentality pervades the traffic office's operations. Just last night, they decided to start giving $100 tickets to cars parked in the Chapel loop during Catholic services. One never knows when the parking officials will discover a new fire lane or deem a particular curb to be part of the landscape.

In so far as Duke has problems, giving more money to the administration certainly won't solve them. More money could only mean more of the same. And so the tough question: Why would Duke students, many of whom feel slighted, shortchanged and overcharged by the powers that be, ever give money to the University at large, particularly a university that directs its money so poorly? The answer seems simple: they won't. What, then, can Duke do to keep alumni giving rates from plunging in years to come? Certainly the University could start by reigning in abusive and unaccountable bureaucracies like Parking and Transportation Services. However, unless a lot of internally unpopular changes are made, Duke students are sure to have gripes far into the future. There is another hope, however. Duke can seriously start to court targeted donations among average alumni, not simply the big donors as in years past.

Targeting donations would mean inviting alumni to contribute directly to programs they would particularly like to support--perhaps the club sports team they used to play on, a religious group, or their FOCUS program. Though alumni can technically already do this in many cases, this option is seldom presented in development campaigns.

Of course, Duke's highest officials would like to be able to direct funds according to their own priorities, rather than earmarked alumni interests. Duke will have little choice, however, in years to come, for as alumni graduate with a more bitter taste in their mouths and become more educated about the workings of the University, general fundraising campaigns are bound to return less and less. The most interesting question is how long it will take Duke fundraisers to realize this.

One caution, however: If Duke does follow the ideal route of courting targeted donations across the board, it must be scrupulous in maintaining the integrity of alumni intentions. One need only recall the Bass donation at Yale in the early 1990s to recognize the importance of this lesson. Yale alum Lee Bass gave $20 million to his alma mater to support the study of Western civilization. Rather than being directed to that end, however, the donation was hijacked by quasi-academic political interests groups and directed to ends radically at odds with Bass's intent. Four years later, Yale was forced to return the $20 million to Bass, when it became clear his wishes would not be followed.

Targeted donations are likely to direct money to programs not supported by the status quo and budgetary administrators will not like that. This is precisely the point, however, for it is only in so far as alumni interests differ from the University's that targeted donations become attractive to alumni. God help the poor fundraiser who calls me five years from now asking me to donate to Duke. However, I wouldn't mind talking to a member of the rugby team and throwing a few bucks its way. Duke may risk a lot of its present priorities with this strategy, but the way things look among students right now, I'm not sure what the university will have to lose in years to come.