With a rapidly growing $ 7.2 billion endowment and in the midst of a massive capital campaign, Columbia appears poised for financial advancement. In the mid-1960s, the University seemed to be in a similar position—but history intervened.
Columbia kicked off a historic fundraising effort in October 1966, seeking to raise $200 million. Yet the 1968 protests and subsequent administrative actions left some alumni feeling alienated from or embarrassed by their alma mater, which triggered a sharp decrease in donations both from graduating students and alumni of the late 1950s and early ’60s.
In the introduction to Up Against the Ivy Wall: A History of the Columbia Crisis, Robert Friedman, CC ’69 and Spectator editor-in-chief in 1968, wrote that the campaign “was then the largest fundraising effort in the history of American education. As the October 1969 deadline approached, less than half the money had been collected or pledged.”
The drop-off in loyalty to the University was closely linked with the protests. Some students felt alienated because their political views clashed with those of the administration, while others felt that their degree had been sullied by the protests themselves. During the Commencement ceremony for the class of 1968, held in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, around 300 seniors walked out and held a “counter-commencement” on Low Plaza. University loyalty after graduation significantly diminished after students walked out of the wrought-iron gates for the last time, a feeling which some alumni say continues to this day.
“Columbia work-study students occasionally call me in the evening asking for money. I tell them about 1968. It is news to them,” Michael Jacoby Brown, CC ’69, wrote in an explanation of why he does not feel compelled to donate. “I guess it is not something Columbia mentions at orientation. Better to forget all that unpleasantness.”
James Kunen, CC ’70 and author of The Strawberry Statement—an account of his years at Columbia during the 1968 revolts—said he declined to donate because he found the school to be an “impersonal” place, led by a “remote” and “unresponsive” President Grayson Kirk. He described Columbia College as a “backwater” of undergraduate education at the time.
Thomas Hamilton, CC ’60, said he was turned off to the idea of donating after his interactions with administrators during the uprisings. Because of a run-in with University Treasurer William Bloor on May 17, 1968 during a sit-in that Columbia students held in a University-owned building on 114th Street, he chooses not to donate to the University and said he would reconsider only if he receives a public apology from the school’s current treasurer.
“I introduced myself, ‘I’m in the class of 1960 and I’m very concerned ... about what’s happening to our university,’” Hamilton said. “He interrupted me ... and said, ‘Get out of my face, Thomas Hamilton ... I don’t want to see you or any of your type.’”
“Finally I said to him, ‘If that’s the way you feel about alumni relations, don’t even bother asking for donations in the future.’ And he just turned his back on me and walked away.”
Other alumni of the time have become donors.
“I thought the school was great,” said Leslie Lepow, CC ’71, whose daughter Hannah now attends Columbia. “It was a stressful time, but I mean, America was in a stressful time.”
Lepow said that from what he had seen, the members of his graduating class, who were first-years in 1968, have collectively been one of the most significant classes of donors in the last 50 years.
“There were a lot of very conservative people in my class,” Lepow said, adding that students in his class on the whole did not experience the same kind of disillusionment with the school.
While Columbia’s endowment may lag behind those of peer institutions—in part due to the lost donation base of 1968 alumni—fundraising and alumni donations remain strong and growing overall. As of March 3, the current Columbia Campaign has generated over $2.7 billion, $706 million ahead of schedule—an achievement due in no small part to alumni donors. The 2008 fiscal year has brought the campaign $403 million, in comparison to the $364 million raised in 2007—a growth of over 10 percent. The school has raised $1.2 billion for the endowment.
Over the years, Columbia has expanded its dealings with former students through programming designed to bring a generation of alumni back into the fold. For instance, while the administration is not officially hosting this week’s 1968 reunion, it is providing free space and resources for several days of events.
“We still have very close friends from Columbia ’68,” Barry Waldorf, Law ’69, said in response to the announcement of the reunion. “And if fortune smiles upon me a little longer, I’ll see you in April.”