Student groups involved in recruitment and fundraising have received mixed reactions from potential donors and prospective students regarding the investigation of former AU President Benjamin Ladner's misuse of school funds and his subsequent termination.
Mark Stern, coordinator of AU Ambassadors and a junior in the School of Communication, said the Ladner investigation has had little impact on the number of prospective students registering for Preview Day and university-sponsored overnights. The turnout for last Friday's Preview Day was consistent with the participation in past Preview Days, Stern said. The first Preview Day is also traditionally the smallest, he said.
"I think our largest problem this past weekend was the flooding in the Northeast," Stern said.
The Multicultural Overnight last Thursday did not have many participants, but this overnight always attracts less prospective students than others, he said.
Stern said he has not received any comments from parents regarding the Ladner investigation. Madi Joyce, a sophomore in SOC and an AU Ambassador, also said she has not had to answer Ladner-related questions from parents.
"I think it's possibly because a lot of people [who visit AU] are from out of state," she said.
Summer Carson, a senior in the School of International Service who solicits donations from alumni for AU's Phonathon, said that some alumni said they wouldn't donate until the Ladner situation was resolved. However, when someone chooses to put off donating, it is considered a refusal for the entire fiscal year, and the Phonathon cannot call that person back until the next fiscal year, starting on May 1, 2006.
Carson said that during the Ladner controversy, she received an average of about five refusals per shift. Normally, in the course of a three-and-a-half-hour shift, Phonathon workers receive about 30 donations and anywhere from 80 to 90 refusals.
"On average, alumni participation teeters at about 20 percent throughout the year," Carson said. "So if five of the 80 to 90 refusals are due to Ladner, it's not significant. It only alters it by a couple of percentage points."
She added that people who give faithfully to the university usually give the same amount as they have in previous years. An alumnus's decision to specify where their donation should go usually has little to do with the president, and more to do with their personal ties to AU, she said.
In her experience, the number of refusals has decreased since the university fired Ladner, said student Phonathon employee Katie McIlhenny, a first-year graduate student in SOC. She said AU's alumni participation rate has increased relative to previous years, but is still not comparable to other universities. For instance, Notre Dame's participation rate is 68 percent, she said, and schools like Howard University have very strong alumni ties that AU lacks.
McIlhenny said that the Phonathon expects this year's participation rate to be about 22 percent, since it has increased by approximately 2 percent each year. She said she thinks that one of the reasons for the small amount of alumni participation is the lack of school spirit and a central rallying point, like a football team.
McIlhenny said there seems to be strong alumni involvement within particular schools, such as SOC, where there is a strong involvement due to that school's alumni mentorship program. This attitude does not translate to the general population.
"The problem isn't that people don't give enough, it's that not enough people give," said Carson. Not all groups on campus have had the Phonathon's level of success with recent fundraising.
The AU Crew team has had a less-than-positive experience in seeking donations. Crew is a club sport, meaning they rely heavily on fundraising to support the team, according to Jenn Oakland, a junior in the School of Public Affairs who is in charge of fundraising for the team.
In late September and early October, the team went door-to-door, asking local residents for donations for their Erg-a-Thon, held Oct. 5 on the quad, she said. Many residents were unwilling to donate because of the Ladner investigation, she said.
"Even though we tried to explain to them that all the money goes directly to us, they wouldn't [donate] because they were so disgusted with the school," Oakland said.
In the spring, AU Crew did not have any trouble soliciting donations from residents, Oakland said.
