A Question of Funding

Share this article

Staff members at America’s colleges and universities often have often been unabashed about their admiration for President Barack Obama, a recovering academic himself. According to The Chronicle Review, a publication of The Chronicle of Higher Education, academics are considering taking Obamamania to a new level for their fundraising enterprises.

Marc Parry describes in the April 24 issue of The Chronicle Review that some colleges have hired Blue State Digital, the consulting firm which designed mybarackobama.com, for fundraising solutions. “Now the strategic-consulting and technology firm, Blue State Digital, is courting colleges,” writes Parry. “Some are welcoming the political rainmaker inside their wrought-iron gates,” including the University of Florida, New York University, and, possibly, the California Institute of Technology.

Blue State’s “retainer can range from $10,000 to $30,000 a month,” according to Parry.

Tuition at the University of Florida costs $17,300 for in-state students and $34,910 for out-of-state students, according to their website. In other words, Blue State’s retainer costs the equivalent of a free ride for between 7 and 21 in-state students or a free ride for between 3 and 10 out-of-state students.

The goal of these efforts is to boost declining alumni donations through modern information technology. “Some university fund-raising officials and consultants point out that you can’t muster the urgent passion for a college that Mr. Obama inspired in millions of supporters who saw his election as the best chance to reverse the decline of America,” writes Parry. “The Obama campaign was a two-year dash aimed at a clear finish line. But colleges have a habit of pushing the finish line back, the skeptics argue. Alumni are asked to give again and again, in larger and larger amounts.”

“But some skeptics question whether what works in the digital war room of a political campaign can translate into the academic arena,” Parry writes. “(Try this one: A new roof for our state-college gym? Yes we can!)”

Open at your own risk…
…If you open innocuous emails from your alma mater, you might just end up on the phone-athon circuit. Creighton University tailored its email fundraising campaign to identify their “passionate” and “dedicated” alumni using sports-related emails.

“Last month the Nebraska college sent out an e-mail message asking people to cheer on the Blue Jays during March Madness,” writes Parry. “Creighton kept track of all the alumni who opened the message. Everybody who did so then got funneled into the Creighton phone-athon—and got an extra call.”

Parry notes that alumni contributions have been falling swiftly in recent years, down 20 percent, or “from 13.8 percent in 2001 to 11 percent in 2008.”

Meanwhile—even in times of economic crisis—college faculty salaries have risen faster than have other wages. “With inflation at its lowest rate in more than half a century — a rock-bottom 0.1 percent, the report notes — faculty pay, adjusted for inflation, rose 3.3 percent in 2008-9,” wrote Audrey Williams June for the April 17 issue of The Chronicle Review.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) report “collected the salary information in the fall of 2008, before layoffs, pay cuts, and furloughs began to crimp faculty members’ incomes,” writes June, characterizing faculty salaries as under threat, since their salary increases (3.8 percent) were outpaced by inflation in 2007 (4.1 percent), as it had been in previous years.

According to a January 2009 release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this 3.3 percent salary increase for faculty outpaced the 2008 wage and salary growth for civilian workers (+2.7 percent), private industry (+2.6 percent), and state and local government employees (+3.1 percent).

According to BLS data, none of these groups had salary and wage increases of more than 3.5 percent in 2007. (June reports that the AAUP placed average faculty salary increases at 3.8 percent for 2007). Civilian worker wages and salaries rose 3.4 percent, private industry wages rose 3.3 percent, and state and local government wages rose by 3.5 percent.

Bethany Stotts is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.