Senior gifts take less tangible forms
By Jacqueline Tabas
June 21, 2009 10:43 p.m.
The UCLA Senior Class Giving Committee encourages graduating seniors to give back to UCLA through the UCLA Fund.
But the way that the committee asks for donations has changed in the last few years. The class of 2003 was the last to donate a tangible gift to the university in the form of lifetime UCLA e-mail accounts for alumni.
In past years, gifts have included the benches on Bruin Walk, which were a gift donated in 1999. Among others are the campus directional signs, the Janss Terrace and Fountain, the Kerckhoff Study Lounge, and the Wooden Center Cardio Fitness Center, according to a line of plaques that dots Bruin Walk and commemorates the gifts.
Since 2003, however, the campaign has encouraged students to donate money to various aspects of their UCLA community, instead of having students donate physical objects as they had in the past.
“Many years ago, UCLA used to give tangible gifts. But then as students realized that UCLA receives less and less money each year, they came up with the idea of actually giving money back to UCLA,” said Jayme Farrell-Ranker, chair of the Senior Class Giving Committee and a recent graduate.
A gift is any amount of money donated to UCLA by a student and can range from $1 to more than $100, she said.
The money goes to the UCLA Fund, which is an account used by the chancellor to pay for campus programs. The fund can be used to recruit and retain faculty and for student research and scholarships, according to the UCLA Fund’s Web site.
The push for monetary donations was initiated in part because the state contributes to less than 13 percent of UCLA’s budget, according to the UCLA Fund Web site.
Throughout the year, the Senior Class Giving Committee hosted a wide variety of events for seniors in hopes of encouraging students to donate money to UCLA. These events included Senior Fest, Senior Discount Nights, Career Conversations, Academic Outreach, Organization Collaboration/Outreach and Senior Week.
Even a $1 donation per student among a large graduating class can go far, said Melissa Bersofsky, one of the directors of the Senior Class Giving Committee.
“A dollar from each student can make a world of difference for others ““ just $1,” she said.
But the Senior Class Giving Committee was not as successful this year, reaching only 23 percent of students. In 2008, on the other hand, 40 percent of students donated, according to the group’s records of the number of gifts received from past campaigns.
Despite the decrease in participation, this year’s campaign still has had the second-highest class participation in history. More than 1,500 seniors earned more than $34,000 in gifts, which will be returned to continuing Bruins.
Donors to this year’s campaign stated their personal beliefs about giving back to UCLA.
“It almost seems that budget cuts are present in every aspect of the public sector, and the University of California is certainly not exempt from the economic tribulations. Furthermore, if the state isn’t going to give us money, who is?” said Rene Tiongquico Jr., a recent graduate and a donor to this year’s campaign.
Tiongquico said that because UCLA has given so much back to him, he in turn feels the need to give back to UCLA.
“I really am an ardent fan of giving back because UCLA has already given much back to us. … (The university) has taken care of us for the past four or five years, and it is our duty to ensure that it thrives even in these tough times,” he said.
