This won’t come as a shock to anyone that attended Tufts University, and probably won’t matter to anyone who didn’t, but Tufts University was actually founded by Ebeneezer Scrooge. Yes he’s fictional, but his ghost traveled from London in 1852 and erected a University on a cheap hill just outside Boston, in Somerville, MA. It’s steeped in his miserly tradition, and inspires just as little faith in humanity.
When you’re tuition is as high as Tufts’ is, and your endowment as low, wouldn’t it make sense to endear yourself to your alumni? I mean, you’re already giving them very little proof that their money is used wisely. You gotta suck up a bit, right? Say, keep track of alumni donations, or maybe not cancel concerts alumni pay 20 bucks to see.
See, I made the trek up to Boston this past weekend to attend Spring Fling, and see the last of my ungraduated friends. My senior year, Fling got canceled because of an Act of God thunderstorm. It’s an outdoor concert, and there was no place else to hold the concert. Excuse me, no place up to code.
A few years back, Tufts built the Gantcher Field House, a multi-million dollar project paid for in part by Mr. Gantcher himself. They built it without a ventilation system that would allow indoor events like concerts, but could accommodate smaller things like speeches and track meets. Neighboring Medford also didn’t want to extra traffic once a year, because we all know how irate townies get, idling in the street on their stolen bikes.
So, Tufts had to cancel Spring Fling my senior year because Medford didn’t want kids driving on foot across campus to add to the already hectic Saturday traffic. Anyway, they didn’t take out any rainy day insurance or anything and lost the $50,000 they plunked down for the likes of Busta Rhymes and some over-the-hill ska band. Tickets were free in those days, and they did make it up to my class by letting us come come for free the following year.
This year however, they did take out insurance. I did have to pay 20 bucks. And they did cancel to concert, after it stopped raining. So where’s the insurance going? Not to me, that’s for damn sure. And I’ll put that ‘damned sure’ to shame by being even more God-damned sure I’m never donating to Tufts again.
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