Do you donate to your old school?

Same here and I feel kinda bad for the people who say, "hell no." It's a good feeling to want to give back.

 

Paid $500 to join the university's lifetime alumni upon graduation and now am a low-level athletic booster. I've done this from the year I graduated, even though I didn't work in journalism until 10 years after that. Nothing's changed.

 

I don't ... but I feel badly that I don't.

 

Needless to say, no professional sports journalist should ever become an official member of any athletic program booster club.

 

I donate to the fund for a specific sport. Have for years. And since I don't cover the school, its opponents or anything within 1,000 miles of said school, I see no problem with it.

 

I have donated a whopping $50 and that went to the journalism fund.

 

I disagree.

My personal life is separate from my professional life and it's my choice to pick where my philanthropic money goes.

I don't live in the state I went to college and don't cover college sports at all, but I don't see a conflict. It's not like I'm setting up a scholarship in my name and being trotted out on the football field for awards.

I'm also a season ticketholder for my college football team, which is also in my hometown.

 

My concept of "giving back" would be to help a student in some way -- review their work, write a letter of recommendation, call them with job leads, whatever.

I don't see any purpose in handing money to institutions that are notorious for wasting it.

 

I'll sometimes get calls from three different groups within the school, all within a few days of each other. I've tried to explain that they should coordinate their calls better, so I don't feel overwhelmed, but they apparently don't listen.

 

I live 65 miles away from the school I graduated from. The paper I work for is available in the city where this university is located; my byline - and column mug in years past - has appeared in papers sold in this city for years.

Hell, I worked in the Sports Information office as an undergrad and still drop by campus 4-5 times a year to visit the SID and others in the athletic department. Yesterday, while playing golf nearby, the athletic director dropped by to visit our group.

And yet, I've never once been approached by the Alumni Association to contribute. There's also a large alumni chapter in the city I live in now with members who know I attended their school, because we had classes together!

All it takes is a letter or postcard or even a phone call and I'll break out the checkbook. But nearly two decades after graduation, I'm still waiting.

Mrs. PD, by the way, contributes $200 a year to her alma mater.

 

To the school? No way in hell... the school I graduated from changed names since I graduated and I refuse to recognize the new name. The only donation I've made where I was forced to go through the school is to a scholarship fund in honor of the school's lone journalism professor who just retired. The school's journalism department might have been a one-man show but nearly every one of his students that wanted a job in print journalism had one upon graduation or a year or more prior to graduation.