Jim Newell | Why I won't donate to the capital campaign

During my wanderings on the Saturday of my first Homecoming as a Penn alumnus, I came across what appeared to be Epcot Center on College Green. As I found out, the campy festivus was actually the kickoff of Penn's new, $3.5 billion capital campaign. Penn, you slut!

Anyone else go to this thing? Lasers! Amy Gutmann in strapless red! Promotional campaign videos featuring students with fun ethnic names! But hey, what about that three-beer limit? If you're throwing a party celebrating the end of the world, at least get the kids drunk.

So. Stupid.

If Epcot Center is an instance of everything capitalism can do bad, this kickoff campaign was an instance of everything Penn can do worse. And although the night's producers thoroughly described the campaign's goals with such expository language as "Making History" and "A New Kind of University," I still had some questions afterwards - picky me! - and would like to present them here.

OK OK, I'll ask just one for President Gutmann: Are you seriously asking me for money now, after you've been embarrassing the school for the last seven weeks? I'm referring to the administration's complete unwillingness to disclose the reason(s) for beloved ex-Admissions Dean Lee Stetson's mysterious, immediate resignation on Aug. 30.

It's like a babysitter refusing to feed an infant its Gerber, and then at the end of the day asking that infant for $3.5 billion.

As an editor of the blog IvyGate, where I track the news, gossip and douchebags of all eight Ivies, no story this fall - not even scabies outbreaks at Harvard, or secret Yale sex tapes! - has carried nearly as much intrigue as "the Stetson Affair."

Like the DP, we at IvyGate have offered previously unexplored degrees of anonymity to any in-the-know officials willing to wax Stetson, but they've all taken blood oaths or something and won't spill the beans. (Fortunately IvyGate is a blog, and since there are no "laws" on the Internet, we published some of the Stetson rumors in September. Good times.)

Their silence, however, has been somehow more edifying than University spokesperson Lori Doyle's curt offerings. Doyle, who we have very generously euphemized as "icy" and "stoic" on IvyGate, famously responds to most Stetson inquiries with, "The reasons for his departure are private and confidential."

Imagine my surprise, then, when an article in the DP about IvyGate and similar blogs quoted her as saying, "We try our best to make sure the blogs have accurate information about Penn but frankly, there is not very much we can do to influence their stories."

A lie, and then another lie. The administration doesn't give us information, and there's a lot they can do to influence our stories. They can give us information, for example.

As fun as it is, there's no point in picking on Lori Doyle for having to spew out the administration's inane drivel whenever the DP, IvyGate, or I don't know, potential donors want to know if there's misconduct among the school's top ranks.

While various rumors offer scandalous explanations for Stetson's departure - some of them even provide decent evidence, I might add - curious, proud Penn alumni such as myself want to see them buried. I make fun of Penn a lot (though not as much as Columbia), but anyone who caught me four-beers-down at Smoke's during Senior Week has heard me say it: Penn offers the fullest undergraduate experience in American higher education. I meant that then and am trying to mean it now, but this silly, ethically questionable administration keeps getting in the way.

I'm trying to do this writer thing nowadays, so it's unlikely that I'll ever have disposable income to donate. Maybe some day, however, I'll find a clean $20 bill on the street that explodes unless I give it to an Ivy League university. Will I give it to my alma mater, or maybe to Harvard, a school that shits $3.5 billion fundraising campaigns after its morning coffee?

Mini-cheeseburgers and tight red dresses, while very pretty, won't open my wallet. An institution that brazenly disregards its constituents' concerns and then panhandles among the same crowd should learn its damn P's and Q's. Whether the Stetson Affair involved misconduct or not, I'll gladly consider ("consider") donating if and when the administration discloses the truth.

And if you're going to have a laser show, it's going to take more than three beers for us to enjoy it.

Jim Newell is a former editor of 34th Street and a contributing editor to IvyGate. He graduated from the College in 2007.

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