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Post by bringbackcaro on Jun 29, 2018 16:34:48 GMT -5
But I believe that there is an issue far deeper and more important than alumni giving involved in the Crusader /Liew imbroglio. Should a college administration adopt a stance that it considers ignoble, one that it believes strikes at the core values of the institution simply to appease alumni and secure money from them? Is this what we expect from HC? Are those alumni who withhold donations or threaten such to the school being loyal to the school or are they narcissistically attempting to bend the school to their own wishes? I think that maybe some of us need to grow up and act with the understanding and broad perspective of adults. Ridiculous straw man. Perhaps many are just disappointed with the total lack of leadership from the President? Perhaps people maybe noticed that Boroughs put out a much stronger statement about the (media manufactured) immigration crisis last week (a statement that nobody asked for) than on anything that he has said regarding issues that actually pertain to the College (Crusader, Benny Liew)? If people feel that they can no longer support the leadership of the College, that does not mean that they no longer "Love HC."
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 29, 2018 16:53:28 GMT -5
67, we probably agree on 95% of things (uh-oh, groupthink?).
While you think that the Administration (let us not confuse the administrators, who come and go, with the College which has been around since 1843), should not cave to disgruntled alums, especially not because of the financial impact, I am of the opinion that they should not have caved to 43 +/- disgruntled faculty members, many of whom do not share the religion and/or values of the College upon which the College was founded. And, I hate to break it to you, but I guarantee you that if people like Park Smith and the Luths told Fr. Boroughs, they weren't ever going to give another nickel to Holy Cross unless the logo/mascot was reinstated, it'd take only a New York minute before they found a reason to do that.
I personally attended 2 different events on campus for these discussions about the Crusader and its meaning. At one event, if memory serves, there were 5 faculty members, 2 of which said they were not Catholic, in fact, not Christian and they were the most vocal about the need to change. In the other event, it was an "open discussion." Attending were students, alums, local residents, professors, staff, Jesuits. As I posted shortly after, Fr. Markey read Fr. Brooks' response to the famous (still? notorious?) Harvard law professor who basically said Holy Cross should abandon its Crusader because as a Jew, he found it offensive, despite the fact he had, and never had, any association with Holy Cross. Fr. Brooks has been accused here often of kow-towing to Harvard. Not in that letter!
The "victims" of the Crusades suffered under the symbol of the cross. So, will that be next?
I have posted ad nauseam that fully acknowledging that some Crusaders almost certainly performed atrocities by 21st century standards, atrocities were committed against Christians too. Two wrongs certainly don't make a right but here is a key concept, and I believe even some supporters of ridding the Crusader would acknowledge, that this is a case of presentism - judging the acts of people in the Middle Ages by our current morality. The concept that I think we all had when we were students was that the Crusader was a defender of the faith - a noble one. They defended, not always successfully, Christianity and Europe.
And here's the bottom, bottom line: If the Crusaders are something that the school should be ashamed of, then keeping the name is stupid and simply ridding the logo/mascot should not have even been considered as the people offended should still be offended. No halfway measure should have even been an option.
No, my friend, this was botched totally and completely.
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Post by hcpride on Jun 29, 2018 18:17:48 GMT -5
But I believe that there is an issue far deeper and more important than alumni giving involved in the Crusader /Liew imbroglio. Should a college administration adopt a stance that it considers ignoble, one that it believes strikes at the core values of the institution simply to appease alumni and secure money from them? Is this what we expect from HC? Are those alumni who withhold donations or threaten such to the school being loyal to the school or are they narcissistically attempting to bend the school to their own wishes? I think that maybe some of us need to grow up and act with the understanding and broad perspective of adults. Ridiculous straw man. Perhaps many are just disappointed with the total lack of leadership from the President? Perhaps people maybe noticed that Boroughs put out a much stronger statement about the (media manufactured) immigration crisis last week (a statement that nobody asked for) than on anything that he has said regarding issues that actually pertain to the College (Crusader, Benny Liew)? If people feel that they can no longer support the leadership of the College, that does not mean that they no longer "Love HC." I suspect quite a few HC grads view HC as changing and moving away from them rather than they (the grads) are changing and moving away from Holy Cross. Calls to mind the famous Reagan quote: “I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 29, 2018 18:29:46 GMT -5
Might be one of your better, if not best, posts.
As I mentioned above, I make a distinction between Holy Cross and the current administrators/Board of Holy Cross. They overlap but are not identical. Not to belabor the political reference you made, but it is similar to loving your country but being upset with a particular president (again, not trying to be political . . . could be Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, JFK, Ike, etc., you get the point) or party in power.
The basic mission of the College has been pretty consistent over its 175 years and most alums support that. How that mission is carried out is where people of good faith can have different opinions on the right way to do that.
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 29, 2018 18:52:39 GMT -5
Of course it is possible, especially for someone who is not an alum. I can tell you that through the IVC, I know more Jesuits than I did when I was on the hill and most are totally against the change or neutral but did not hear a one (of 4-5) who was for it. I referenced Fr. Markey, who I don't personally know, who was adamant the Crusader should stay. If you are thinking it was a top down Jesuit decision, I can only tell you that before the Crusader issue came up, I happened to have had a conversation with the Northeast Jesuit provincial, who I assumed was Boroughs' boss and he made VERY clear to me that he was not Boroughs' boss nor had any influence on him but said he greatly respected Fr. B.
And, no, I am pretty sure that Fr. B did not get a call from Pope Francis on the subject but, hey, it's possible!
As posted, probably before you were on here (but, perhaps lurking), as best we know, this came about because of the Georgetown/Fr. Mulledy/slave issue. Boroughs decided for Holy Cross to try to cut the baby in half and change Mulledy to Brooks/Mulledy Hall with the intellectual jiu-jitsu that it would make people think about slavery and injustice and offsetting the slave-seller by the guy who brought in our Fraternity brothers. So, when that came up, the 43 faculty members basically wrote to Fr. B "hey, now that you've tackled slavery, you should consider getting rid of the Crusader." He deferred for something like a year (forgot the reason given). If it was Fr. Brooks still president, he would have told the faculty, "noted with interest" and that'd be the end of it. Faculty who were too offended by this symbol, which was there well before any of them were hired, could then move on to where they could feel more comfortable. If the symbol was so offensive, why did they choose to teach at Holy Cross? Instead, Fr. B decided to "discuss" it and first tried to pass the buck to the BoT. This was sort of like Herod and Pilate, each trying to pass the buck. The BoT decided, let's keep the name but maybe the mascot/symbol should be "modernized" (or words to that effect) and turned it back to Boroughs. Now he's stuck. What does he do? Looks for the compromise (again). So the BoT said keep the name, change the look of the mascot? How about no mascot, no logo. Now if the people on the BoT had gumption, they should have said "no, we said change the mascot not get rid of it." Now Sarasota, who has been inquired about recently, if he was still here, he'd be the first to say: 1. glad they got rid of the Crusader and 2. the BoT are a bunch of lackeys who do the bidding of Fr. B.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Jun 29, 2018 20:43:39 GMT -5
Were there any good and noble Crusaders or were they all evil?
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 29, 2018 21:01:09 GMT -5
Yes. Fini.
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Post by Chu Chu on Jun 30, 2018 13:35:06 GMT -5
I am grateful for my relationship to Holy Cross, I support mission, I am a fan of our teams and I give the leadership the benefit of doubt at times when I disagree. It makes me sad to see some alums so bitter over a mascot decision.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 30, 2018 17:02:17 GMT -5
I'm a little surprised to see the now-tired Crusader mascot issue being rehashed yet again. All I can add is that I have never seen a rendition of the Holy Cross Crusader that looked anything like the real thing. Instead, the artistic drawings resembled some knight ready to take part in a late Middle Ages tournament. As for game-day versions, I remember a guy on a horse who looked like a mounted college student (1963), a ground-bound student in a purple jumper holding a shield that looked like a repurposed Dinand food tray (mid-1960s), a costume that looked to me a little like a knightly Jay Leno on drugs, and the recent "Iggy" who looked as if he had escaped from a Saturday morning children's cartoon.
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 30, 2018 18:15:20 GMT -5
All of those apparently continue to strike fear in the hearts of non-Christians and, thankfully, in the wisdom of the College's leaders, we have eliminated all of them . . . . except the one that has yet to be sanded off the Hart center court. I think it would only be right that a warning be posted at the door to the basketball court that non-Christians enter at their own risk lest they be agitated and possibly have a stroke.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 30, 2018 19:12:49 GMT -5
Were there any good and noble Crusaders or were they all evil? All the participants in the Fourth Crusade were excommunicated. On the Third Crusade, Hugh de Neville (family again) went as a member of Richard the Lionheart's household. Hugh later became King John's "evil counsellor", in the words of the contemporary chroniclers. Alan de Neville was supposed to go on a crusade as penance for arresting Thomas a' Becket's chaplain. He never did. When Alan died, the monks of the Battle Abbey asked that he be buried on their grounds. (The Battle Abbey was built by William the Conqueror as penance for the Conquest.) Henry II, he who asked 'who will ride me of this meddlesome priest?', demurred. Said Henry to the monks, "I will have his money, you can have his body, the demons of hell his soul." My 'family' seems to have been absent on the Second Crusade. On the first Crusade, three of the four leaders of the crusader armies from northern France were family. Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, Robert II, Count of Flanders, and Stephen, Count de Blois. Of the three, only Stephen was devout, and pious, and led a life worth emulating. His wife became a saint. Also on the First Crusade were the sons and grandsons of my ancestor's first cousins, the de Hautevilles. They led the crusader army from Italy. Forty years before the First Crusade, they imprisoned the Pope for eight months, releasing him two weeks before he died. I suspect they may have poisoned jis successor. Two popes later, they joined forces with an anti-pope, forced the conclave-elected pope to flee Rome, cornered and captured him. The pope was forced to renounce the papacy. The anti-pope became pope, and promptly arrested and imprisoned the previous pope until his death. The anti-pope who became pope through force of arms is recognized in the church's line of succession from St. Peter. The Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways. The de Hautevilles captured Antioch, found the Holy Lance, and established the Norman kingdom of Antioch which lasted about 250 years, and longer than any of the other crusader conquests in the Holy Land. IMO, the only truly successful crusade was led by an excommunicated emperor.
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 30, 2018 19:21:26 GMT -5
Perhaps the right answer but to the wrong question: I can think of a bunch . . . . Fr. Hart, Cousy, Heinsohn, Lockbaum, Fauci, and thousands more in 175 years.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 30, 2018 19:26:26 GMT -5
In the breakout of giving by class (as of June 28) there is a clear demarcation between classes from 1996 through 2017, where participation is low, and older classes where participation is relatively high. The notable exception in the latter group is the class of 1987.
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Post by Crucis#1 on Jun 30, 2018 20:54:25 GMT -5
In my travels to colleges and universities across the US and Canada, I have seen alumni strongly associate with their respective schools especially their athletic teams. Holy Cross Alumni in some way fall into an outlier group in their personal embracing the athletic mascot to their ongoing personal identification. For example, would not find it be a little beyond the pale to hear University of Alabama Alumni identify themselves as Crimson Tides, or NC State Alumni say they are a Wolf Pack. The college sports teams yes, as an individual Alumnus probably not.
99.9% of the world outside the gates do not make a distinguishing understanding of being a “Holy Cross Crusader” from the relatives of PP who were on rampage. To them a “Crusader” is always identified as a Medieval group on a rampage, no matter how much an attempt is made to spin it as identification by the college as a group focused on a benign mission.
Outside of being at sporting events on campus, in today’s world, self identification as a “crusader“ is not seen in a benign manner. In the past, I have rocked Holy Cross “Crusader” gear outside of the friendly confines of Fitton and Hart. Today is a new day, the world is different place, the term Crusader is seen by people outside of the purple bubble not as a group in keeping with a long standing tradition of a mascot, as some of us may think, but as an anachronism, by an institution that has not moved into the 21st century. Several of my friends were recently in Jerusalem, they wisely kept their gear with a Crusader at home for their own safety.
By the way, I like Iggy as a mascot, wish we could keep him as the icon. Just change the mascot from the Crusaders to the Royal Knights or the Paladins like Furman University.
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Post by beaven302 on Jul 1, 2018 12:24:05 GMT -5
Royal Knights or Paladins might not be safe from the future outrage of the politically correct. As soon as these guardians of public propriety learn that many medieval knights were armed thugs in chain mail and not a collection of courtly Sir Gallahads, they'll be on the warpath yet again.
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Post by Crucis#1 on Jul 1, 2018 17:35:48 GMT -5
My concern regarding the mascot is based on risk management mitigation. In today’s global market, the term “Crusader” has negative connotations, and viewed regarding risk management as high in liability regarding acceptance. I would love to see a person on the street poll in certain markets across the United States and Canada.
Over the last 40 years, a number of academically elite schools have realized that a mascot that is viewed negatively, should and have been removed. For example, Stanford, Dartmouth, Amherst, as well as some other schools that realize their mascot was a liability.
For example Elon, getting rid of the “Fighting Christians”. For a school in the Bible Belt of North Carolina, they made the adjustment to attract a changing market and demographic. Their applications have gone up significantly. For the quality of an institution of HC, we should be averaging 10,000 or more applications each year, not the current barely 7,000.
Changing the name of the mascot should not be taken as a personal affront, it is a change that is needed to compete in a 21st century model for higher education in the United States.
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Post by bringbackcaro on Jul 1, 2018 17:52:18 GMT -5
My concern regarding the mascot is based on risk management mitigation. In today’s global market, the term “Crusader” has negative connotations, and viewed regarding risk management as high in liability regarding acceptance. I would love to see a person on the street poll in certain markets across the United States and Canada. Over the last 40 years, a number of academically elite schools have realized that a mascot that is viewed negatively, should and have been removed. For example, Stanford, Dartmouth, Amherst, as well as some other schools that realize their mascot was a liability. For example Elon, getting rid of the “Fighting Christians”. For a school in the Bible Belt of North Carolina, they made the adjustment to attract a changing market and demographic. Their applications have gone up significantly. For the quality of an institution of HC, we should be averaging 10,000 or more applications each year, not the current barely 7,000. Changing the name of the mascot should not be taken as a personal affront, it is a change that is needed to compete in a 21st century model for higher education in the United States. Changing the mascot will have no positive impact on applications. (And we’re still technically calling ourselves “Crusaders” anyway.) The thing I wonder about is why the alumni giving participation rate is apparently taking a big hit. Wouldn’t you think ALL those many SJWs who would be applauding the school for removing the knight imagery would decide to show some support financially, and maybe provide some balance to alums who are dropping out this year? Oh that’s right, they’ve just moved on to their next cause to be “offended” by.
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Post by rgs318 on Jul 1, 2018 18:10:10 GMT -5
What do you mean by a "big hit?" HC has received more dollars than last year. The percentage of donors has dropped from about 50% to - currently - 46%. Fewer people are giving but they are apparently giving more per donation.
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Post by bringbackcaro on Jul 1, 2018 19:06:17 GMT -5
What do you mean by a "big hit?" HC has received more dollars than last year. The percentage of doors has dropped from about 50% to - currently - 46%. Fewer people are giving but they are apparently giving more per donation. Is it not significant that the participation rate will be under 50% for the first time in 12 years? I didn’t find the exact numbers for each year, but in 2014 the participation rate was 50% with 18,371 donors. That would mean the pool of potential donors would be 36,742. Each year there are approximately 750 new students added, and if you take a conservative estimate on their parents as 1.5 per student, that’s an additional 1,875 donors per year. I have no idea what the number of potential donors who pass away each year would be, but say it’s 500 (with the key assumption that enrollment was significantly lower from the years that account for the majority of alums that pass away at the current time.) That’s a net of 5,500 new potential donors over the past 4 years, bringing the pool to 42,242. A 4% difference would mean ~1,690 fewer participants, with the potential for a bigger drop under the assumption that some alums had already made a donation this year prior to the blunders from leadership. That seems significant to me.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Jul 1, 2018 19:26:23 GMT -5
Lots of assumptions there—-you may want to be more careful in the future
You’ve mixed parents with alums and created quite a hodgepodge of data—
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 1, 2018 19:36:55 GMT -5
BBC et al,
In 2016-17, the number of alumni of record was 37, 130, and the number of alumni donors was 16,979. So even before all the hullabaloo about mascot and moniker, alumni giving was significantly below 50 percent. In 2017-18, the number of alumni of record is probably around 37,500.
Before the end of this year's ALL-IN campaign, I recall reading there were about 15,000 donors for 2017-18. The ALL-IN campaign resulted in 3629 donors, 75 percent of the goal of 4828. The 3629 may not represent unique donors, as some may have given earlier and been counted in the 15,000. And the 15,000 number may also include donors who are not alumni. I'm guessing the 4828 was to get to 50 percent; if so, the college would seem to have bettered the 2016-17 percentage, but is still below 50 percent.
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Post by bringbackcaro on Jul 1, 2018 20:24:41 GMT -5
Lots of assumptions there—-you may want to be more careful in the future You’ve mixed parents with alums and created quite a hodgepodge of data— The 2014 press release did not list a number of alumni donors, only the total number of donors. Based on Phreek’s post of 37,500 alumni, that’s a loss of 1,500 alums if there is a 4% dip, or the equivalent of ~2 full classes of graduates with a total enrollment of 3,000.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 1, 2018 21:11:35 GMT -5
Total donors is a significantly larger set than alumni donors. 'Total' includes current students, non-alumni parents, and friends. It may also include deceased alumni whose spouses/family continue to give in their name. I believe deceased alumni who still 'give' are not included in the alumni of record tabulation.
If one is trying to assess the effect of controversies involving a certain professor and the decision to ditch the mascot, then the years to compare are 2016-17 and 2017-18. 2013-14 or 2014-15 are irrelevant.
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Post by nhteamer on Jul 9, 2018 11:48:36 GMT -5
One of the most impressive statistics was HC at >50% giving.
Another great, hurtful, decision by those in Fenwick
On a positive note the rate of giving by anti-Catholics rose from 0.002 to 0.004
I can see the press release now: “The College of the Holy Cross, located in Worchester, Massachusetts is excited to announce that among those who revile everything for which it stands, giving has doubled.”
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 13:48:37 GMT -5
Guess you are tapped into the inside scoop. I was told that we would probably not hear the final numbers until tomorrow but the last I saw, it'd be a miracle to reach 50% overall, though my Class (1970) had at least 55% and if that number stays (probably go up a point/point and a half), it'd be less than PY by 2-3 points.
I know of at least 2 Classmates on the President's Council who said they would donate this year only to meet their 5 year reunion commitment. After that, probably not. Knowing I would be retiring, I took the Disney position of "under-promise and over-deliver" when I made my 5 year reunion commitment, so I met that commitment early and had no guilt by reducing my prior donations this year.
NHT has hit on a point that will be interesting, how will the College explain this year's Fund results? My understanding is that the actual dollars are up over PY and if I had to guess, the communications will de-emphasize participation and emphasize that they got more dollars.
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