Joohoo Lee: Victims of charity

Last year, I paid $60 so that a couple of Penn students could put on their resume that they were founders of an organization on campus. I was a true philanthropist.

Well, actually, I didn't really want to give the $60. I thought it could have been better spent on causes like feeding starving kids in Africa or investing in the Jooho Lee Christmas Fund. But my parents disagreed.

You see, the savvy founders sent a mailing to my parents. It explained to them that I had been selected to join a very prestigious group called the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. All I needed to do to join was pay the $60 membership fee.

The official brochure and the impressive names on the Honorary Board of Regents for this national organization, which included notables like Maya Angelou, Walter Cronkite and past presidents of institutions like Princeton and Brown universities, convinced my parents that it was imperative that I join this organization, despite the fact that it didn't even exist at Penn at the time.

I suppose enough students and their parents felt the same way. They all sent in their $60, and many never even thought twice about it afterwards. Most of them probably forgot over the summer that they were a part of this new, impressive organization. They probably figured it was one of those mailings they received in high school -- the Who's Who Among American High School Students type of thing, if you will.

Then, the e-mails started coming. And lo and behold, NSCS held its first induction ceremony at Irvine Auditorium on Friday. Coupled with the fact that it was Family Weekend, Irvine was almost packed, with students occupying the middle two aisles of the auditorium and parents sitting off to the side.

They finally got to see the guy who asked for their $60 last year -- Anand Patel. He was standing on stage in a suit to welcome everyone before introducing Professor Andrew Shatte, who spoke on the importance of resilience.

The emphasis of the ceremony, as reiterated by Art Casciato of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, was on the three pillars of NSCS -- scholarship, leadership and service -- which the new members took an oath to uphold.

What fools we were. Millions of high school students are still being duped every year into volunteering for different community service activities with the impression that they are enhancing their college applications. It didn't help me at all. I can just imagine the old folks laughing it up right now, cackling at how they've tricked us into providing them with sponge baths and tax breaks.

Scholarship, leadership and service. Sure, whatever. Just a fancy cover for a cash cow that is the honor society market in America among motivated students.

The NSCS asked each member to bring canned goods to the ceremony so that their first service initiative would coincide with their first event. What a clever public relations move.

Their first four events are community service events. What are these guys trying to do anyway? Save the world by building up scholar-leaders committed to serving the public interest?

Even if their attempts were genuine, which I highly doubt, what could a bunch of guys sitting in a fancy university auditorium do? It's not like they were going to forsake their studies and their future careers to help get a crack addict off the streets.

The world is screwed up. We all have midterms and papers to worry about, dining halls overflowing with wasted food to complain about and the lack of state-of-the art equipment in our recreational facilities to whine about. That's the way the world runs, folks. Some things will never change.

After all, this world is full of screwed up privileged kids like the bitter, selfish, jaded fool in the mirror staring back at me, wasting his life away thinking some things will never change.

Jooho Lee is a junior History and Political Science major from Los Angeles, Calif.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this column included references to an individual who was not consulted on their inclusion in the article. This article has been updated to remove all references to the individual.

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