Philanthropy and American Higher Education

J. Thelin, R. Trollinger

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137318589
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Études supérieures

Philanthropy and American Higher Education provides higher education professionals, leaders and scholars with a thoughtful, comprehensive introduction to the scope and development of philanthropy and fund raising as part of the essential life and work of colleges and universities in the United States.

1

Connecting Past and Present: Historical Background on Philanthropy and American Higher Education

Philanthropy as part of American higher education has a distinctive character and strong presence.¹ At the institutional level, this was best illustrated in 2012 by Stanford University’s successful completion of its five-year campaign to raise $6.2 billion.² A year later, on September 21, 2013, Harvard University announced a fund-raising campaign with a goal of $6.5 billion—the largest fundraising drive ever in higher education. This was no idle effort, as more than ninety thousand donors had already contributed $2.8 billion during the campaign’s “quiet phase.”³

Widespread media coverage understandably gravitates to these highly systematic, large scale initiatives by such internationally prominent universities as Stanford and Harvard. They are, however, not the whole story. One is hard pressed to name an established college or university—whether public or private—that does not have in place a sophisticated development office. But the practices and arrangements that are familiar to us at colleges and universities today have been neither inevitable nor predictable. Their evolution is a fascinating story of individuals, institutions, and episodes characterized by a mix of thoughtful decisions and unexpected events.

This chapter presents what has been the continuity and change in the development of US contemporary policies and practices for philanthropy in higher education. It provides higher education professionals with a fluid narrative whose essential question is, “What were the pivotal events that shaped familiar practices—or, caused us to veer in a new direction?” The themes and significant items introduced in this historical chapter will then be revisited and discussed in detail in pertinent subsequent chapters.

Soon after Harvard College had been granted its charter in 1636 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony college officials set to work drafting and publishing the first fund-raising prospectus—a pamphlet called “New England’s First Fruits.”

After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and led the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, there living among us) to give the one-half of his estate (it being in all about £700) toward the founding of a college, and all his library. After him, another gave £300; others after them cast in more; and the public hand of the state added the rest. The college was, by common consent, appointed to be at Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard College. The edifice is very fair and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall where they daily meet at commons, lectures, and exercises; and a large library with some books to it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for and possessed by the students, and all other rooms of office necessary and convenient with all needful offices thereto belonging. And by the side of the college, a fair grammar school, for the training up of young scholars and fitting of them for academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe they may be received into the college of this school.⁴

Rudimentary by today’s standards and technology, in its day “First Fruits” was a state-of-the-art publication and part of a sophisticated, effective initiative to promote philanthropy for higher education. Harvard delegates journeyed to England to enlist financial support by means of subscriptions for the important cause of creating and maintaining a college in the New World. All the elements of effective fund-raising were in place—mission, motive, commitment, purpose, and a plan. And, it worked! The pamphlet also reveals some other practices that characterize the American approach to supporting education. First, private giving often was in cooperation with public support, as it expressly notes that John Harvard’s generous gifts led to other donors and, finally, “the public hand of the state added the rest.” Also implicit in the concise text was the notion of accountability in which institutions and their delegates made certain to explain to donors how gifts were used in terms of educational purpose as well as the more concrete accomplishments, such as construction of appropriate buildings. The essence of these arrangements was reciprocity—in that each participating group had reasonable, fair expectations of the roles played by others.

To gain a sense of the serious commitment that the American colonies made to their newly founded colleges, it is useful to read carefully the terms and conditions set forth in the formal charters. Consider the following excerpt from the 1764 charter for the College of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (later renamed as “Brown University” in honor of the generosity of the Brown family’s donations):

And furthermore for the greater Encouragement of this Seminary of Learning and that the same may be amply endow’d and enfranchised with the same priveleges Dignities and Immunities, enjoy’d by the American Colleges and European Universities, we do grant enact Ordain and Declare and it is hereby granted Enacted Ordained and Declared that the College Estate, the Estates Persons and Families of the President and Professors for the Time being lying and being within the Colony with the Persons of the Tutors and Students during their Residence at the College shall be freed and exempted from all Taxes, serving on Juries and Menial Services, and that the Persons aforesaid shall be exempted from bearing Arms Impresses and Military Services except in Case of an Invasion.⁵

These privileges and protections that the colonial government built into the academic charter included a mutual agreement of cooperation, as the charter terms required that the institution and its trustees adhere to strict educational purpose:

Whereas Institutions for liberal Education are highly beneficial to Society, by forming the rising Generation to Virtue Knowledge & useful Literature & thus preserving in the Community a Succession of Men duly qualify’d for discharging the Offices of Life with usefulness & reputation they have therefore justly merited & received the attention & Encouragement of every wise and well regulated State, and whereas a Public School or Seminary erected for that purpose within this Colony, to which the Youth may freely resort for Education in the Vernacular & Learned Languages & in the liberal Arts and Sciences, would be for the general Advantage & Honor of the Government.

A further condition was that colleges themselves were expected to be community minded and philanthropic by seeking out talented youth and providing financial aid in the form of scholarships and fellowships. Again, the principle of good faith (literally, bona fide) was intertwined with reciprocity among the constituents. Otherwise, the investment in education would either dissolve or go awry as indulgent ventures without benefit to the commonwealth.

Illustrative of this compact was that colonial colleges reflected their standing as one of the most formal and privileged organizations of their time and place by keeping detailed records of annual revenues and expenses. It was no less than a requirement of fiduciary responsibility for trustees of the academic corporation. Since colleges enjoyed tax exemptions on real property and income, governors and the public from time to time expected accounting for the commonwealth. The problem for researchers today is that many ledgers were lost in fires and floods. Surviving financial documents are often fragmentary. Hence, we are indebted to the original and exhaustive reconstruction of financial records from several colonial colleges that Jesse Brundage Sears undertook. His detailed profiles of trends and practices were published in his 1922 book, Philanthropy in the History of American Higher Education.⁶ In addition to summarizing financial trends Sears also provided annotations about terms and customs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that help to make the collegiate records comprehensible for scholars in the twenty-first century.⁷

The dominant characteristics of colleges and philanthropy in the colonial era were as follow: first, many donations were made “in kind” or what sometimes was called “country pay”—goods and services—simply because there was a lack of hard currency or what we consider “real money.” A College’s records dutifully noted receipt of five sheep, bolts of cotton cloth, even a sugar dish. At first glance this practice seems quaint, even archaic, today in an era of credit cards, online payments, and electronic transfers. On close inspection, however, one finds that “donations in kind” as a substitute for cash gifts have been tenacious and attractive both to donors and recipients. To put this into more modern perspective, it is useful to recall the episode in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, her classic novel about small town life in the South during the Great Depression of the 1930s: a farmer paid Attorney Atticus Finch for “legal work” by leaving a bag of hickory nuts on the lawyer’s back porch. Finch explained to his young, inquisitive daughter that country folks didn’t have much money on hand—a situation that instantly bonded the seventeenth-century colonists with twentieth-century farmers. Even today in the twenty-first century university athletic directors are pleased to accept donations of prime livestock from prosperous ranchers who join with coaches and all fans in wanting to make certain that the football team will be well fed before the big game!

Colleges in the colonial era relied on a practice known as “subscriptions” in which individuals along with such organizations as towns, churches or “associations” made pledges—that is, “subscriptions”—of gifts earmarked for future college support. As noted earlier with the example of Harvard’s “First Fruits” pamphlet and campaign, this approach was especially successful as colleges in the American colonies sent delegates to England—with returns ranging from subscriptions of £1,000 to £10,000.

Another defining characteristic of philanthropy in the American colonies was that colleges received numerous gifts from a diverse range of donors. This was a sign of widespread and generous support. Most of these gifts were small. Yet this established an important, enduring precedent by which we still assess the effectiveness of fund-raising for colleges today. For example, a development office takes justifiable pride in having a large percentage of alumni as donors—regardless of the amount or size of the donation. Once again, cash coexisted with “gifts in kind.” Given that local monetary currencies were uneven and often suspect and that sterling silver from England was rare, colleges often preferred gifts in kind. Books were an especially prized bequest for several reasons. First, they were essential for the reading associated with collegiate scholarship. Second, there were few established publishers or presses in the New World so that even if a college had cash it was still difficult, if not impossible, to buy notable books.

Third, books in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had a real and symbolic value beyond the information conveyed by the printed word. A book was inherently valuable as a work of art, including such components as the quality of the leather binding, the typesetting, the type of vellum used for the pages, and the durability of the stitching. Furthermore, establishing a printing industry was an expensive venture. Little wonder, then, that John Harvard’s gift of his cherished library was good news for the struggling new college in Massachusetts Bay Colony. This practice may seem quaint to us today—but, in fact, those books published in the colonial period have proven to be worth more than their weight in gold. On November 27, 2013 Boston’s Old South Church announced that it had sold its 1640 edition of the Bay Psalm Book for $14,165,000 at auction. According to the New York Times coverage, the small volume “already held a record as the first book printed in English in North America. Now it holds two: It is also the most expensive book ever sold at auction.”⁸

One way to think about the founding of a college in the American colonies is that it was comparable to a young family literally creating a home from scratch. This often included acquiring the unspectacular but necessary durable goods such as lumber or a cask of nails to be used to construct the first college building. Inventories from the eighteenth-century colleges indicate detailed ledgers noting donations of table clothes, candle sticks, silverware, cutlery, glassware, desks, chairs, and other furnishings that were essential and often expensive when fitting the college building’s dining commons or the president’s house.

The most impressive gifts in terms of both generosity and educational vision were those for endowing professorships. In 1721 Thomas Hollis established a professorship of divinity at Harvard. In his “orders” he asks “that the interest of the funds be used, £10 annually for help to a needy student for the ministry—as many of these as the funds will bear.” He reserved the right to sanction all appointments during his lifetime, then leaves it to the “President and Fellows of Harvard College,” and asks “that none be refused on account of his belief and practice of adult baptism.” The conditions which he places upon this, the first professorship established in America by private donation, are of interest. These are his words: “I order and appoint a Professor of Divinity, to read lectures in the Hall of the College unto the students; the said Professor to be nominated and appointed from time to time by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, and that the Treasurer pay to him forty pounds per annum for his service, and that when choice is made of a fitting person, to be recommended to me for my approbation, if I be yet living.”

After the initial celebration of such generosity, a college president was left to ponder the sobering fact that the endowed professorship came with strings attached. Hollis’s conditions included his right to approve appointments to the endowed professorship. He also had included stipulations about religious doctrine. What college boards and presidents learned over time was that such donor conditions could be at least confining. At worst, they pre-empted institutional prerogative and academic self-determination. The overriding legacy is that wise college officials eventually added statutes and regulations that curbed or even prohibited certain kinds of extreme donor control once a program was in place.

Hollis showed unprecedented generosity with a gift of £5,000 to endow a professorship of mathematics and natural philosophy. To gain estimate of this relative purchasing power, it is useful to note that among the more prosperous colleges a typical annual budget in the eighteenth century ranged from about £1,000 to £2,000—with student tuition payments accounting for about 70 percent of college annual revenues.

Although Hollis’s terms for his endowed professorships have attracted the attention of historians and lawyers, it was exceptional. Many of the early large gifts were noteworthy in their lack of restrictions or conditions the donors placed on the recipient college. Yet in some instances even a well-intentioned gift saddled a college with responsibilities that were daunting. Foremost was a penchant for donors in England to provide funding for the education and salvation of Native Americans, who ostensibly would enroll for a special course of study at a college. Notable examples were programs at Dartmouth, Harvard, and The College of William ...