‘Classless’ campaign is failing for good reason

I am comfortable writing this because, as Tuesday’s e-mail blast to the senior class makes abundantly clear, 98 percent of you are with me.  

There are few more turbulent times than a college student’s senior year; the prospect of giving up a life built over four years for the great unknown looms. The challenge of nailing down gainful employment in an uncertain market, of wondering whether that first job will net enough to get by and of paying off student loans are all front and center. This is most certainly not the time to entertain the suggestion of donating money to Syracuse University.

The people behind the barrage of e-mails must know this, or else they would not assume a strategy that involves planting seeds of guilt: ‘Did you know that your tuition only pays 80 percent of the costs of your education?’ ‘Only 2 percent have donated … don’t you want to see your name on the list?’ ‘Don’t let the College of Human Ecology win!’ Even the campaign’s moniker ‘Be a Class Act!’ connotes a projection of guilt, intentional or otherwise; am I to be labeled as ‘classless’ should I choose not to participate?

I received a message via the university’s Twitter account assuring me that the campaign is about ‘choice.’ That may be true, but it is unquestionably in painfully poor taste. I can’t speak for the masses, but insulting my intelligence with constant requests for a donation above and beyond the $200,000 I have already contributed certainly dampens the prospect of my entertaining a phone call from the alumni relations office when I do in fact have the means to give.

In lieu of a donation, I’d like to make the following suggestion: that the possessor of the brain behind the ‘Be A Class Act’ nonsense resign his or her position, allowing the $36,000 salary it pays to be reallocated to the campaign. That should go a long way.

Alex Silverman
Senior, public communications major

 

Published on March 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm