To impress parents/relatives, and to leave you with a god taste in your mouth as you leave forever, so you hopefully donate in the future. The end.

The advancement office should take note, because a lot of people don’t care enough to give money back to Georgetown when someone reminds of how poorly so many things are run. Fliers at senior week won’t change that, hiring competent people will.
And I’m not a bitter young alum: I certainly appreciate my time at Georgetown and will happily send The Hoya a check every now and then, but it’ll never go through the advancement office.

Must have been a Freudian slip on account of all of Sam’s complaining.

As far as the giving aspect is concerned: That’s fine, don’t give your gift to the Center for Student Programs, or to any other office you find to be a hassle. What’s great about giving back is that you can specifically designate the beneficiary of your gift. How about supporting some of the fantastic student publications that are able to be funded thanks to the university? The Voice, perhaps?

If you can’t be appreciative of all that Georgetown does for its students because you found a few seconds of bureaucratic red tape to be annoying, that truly is unfortunate for you. You will have to carry your negative and contemptuous attitude with you for the rest of your life, because red tape is unfortunately just about everywhere. I would advise you to just step back and enjoy the parties, celebrations, and joy these last couple of days at Georgetown. This place really has been kind to us these past four years, so now let’s be kind to it.

The point isn’t any single one of these little incidents, it’s the pattern of contempt for or at least disinterest in the students. Having experience much the same treatment in high school, I wrote it off as “just the ways things go” until junior year when I studied abroad at Oxford. My college at Oxford had its problems, to be sure, but there was something you could do about them, and you felt like people actually cared about your concerns. The principal (president) had open office hours every week when anyone who wanted could come to see him and talk about their concerns of whatever nature. He had a montly townhall meeting where he would present to the students and then take questions. Some of those meetings got really, really ugly (think the tea party crowd at the health care townhalls). Students would heckle him. They would ask questions intended to trip him up, then seize joyfully on incorrect answers. At one meeting, a student called him “a filthy coward” and threw something (the issue at hand was bizarrely trivial and involved library fines). The principal, however, handled all of this with incredible grace. He listened. He responded rationally and calmly, and sometimes he made changes on the basis of what people said, but the most important thing is that he was available at least every month for that town hall and you could say whatever you wanted.

At Oxford, they were also honest with us. The college disclosed to the students a detailed budget so that we could see exactly where all the money went. Good luck getting that information out of Georgetown. That let us become informed, and ask questions. It let students become an active part of the decision process, too, because we could look at expenses and say, this isn’t right. As a result, while I was there, the students pushed through a move to reduce spending on computer labs that no one used anymore and shift the money to reducing the cost of the meal plan. At Georgetown, that wouldn’t even be possible because the university outsources dining to Aramark, who have even less interest in student’s well-being than the administration. In short, at Oxford I saw another model. A model where the students had power, and a voice. I will be giving to my college at Oxford.

If Georgetown wants to improve, the first step is to listen. DeGioia, O’Donnell, Olson, and Spiros Dimolitsas (the most important person at Georgetown you’ve never heard of) should have town hall meetings for the students at a minimum of once a semester for whatever concerns students have, not just in response to “diversity incidents”. It would take just a couple hours from them, but have great benefits for everyone. The university should also be more transparent with students, and it should take more time to listen to their concerns.

At Georgetown I think it’s reasonable to expect a more personalized experience. I’m not implying the University should cater to our every need, maybe just a smile rather than a grimace or some small sign of genuine care.

Like most posters, I will eventually donate to Georgetown because of the fantastic friendships and experiences I have nurtured during my time here. I’ll probably donate to a scholarship fund so that some deserving kid doesn’t have to pay exorbitantly to go to a great college.

Final point: Georgetown’s endowment is a major hindrance on its ability to climb the rankings. Right now Georgetown is in an extremely enviable position. Just think about everything it has going for it: Location, academic programs that are either already highly respected (SFS, College) or quickly improving with new facilities (MSB, sciences), even a high-profile Basketball team (this is more important than you’d think). Other schools can’t touch Georgetown on most of these strengths. So why are we ranked so low?

For U.S. News and World Report, at least, “Alumni giving” is a key criteria used to asses, of all things, academic quality. They figure that if you were satisfied, on the whole, with your academic experience you will donate back to your alma mater. So if Georgetown is the strong academic institution we all know it to be, the endowment should be higher. Sam and some other posters gave a few examples of why they won’t donate. Agree or disagree, the University should be paying attention.