Letters
February 26, 2005
Ms. Rebecca S. Chopp, President
Colgate University
13 Oak Drive,
Hamilton, New York 13346
Dear Rebecca:
I appreciated receiving your letter of February, 2005 describing your travels and the efforts you are undertaking to bring more of the collective Colgate family into conversations regarding the future of the university. I regret not having the opportunity to visit with you during your recent trip to North Carolina, but I, like you, do a fair amount of traveling for my profession and was away at the time.
In your letter you note that “As part of the residential education program, the university has made offers to purchase the residences owned by fraternities and sororities. Greek-letter organizations that sell their properties to the university will be allowed to continue operating within their houses…” You neglect to go on to say that those organizations that do not accept the university offers will be forced to close and the members, on pain of expulsion, forbidden to continue as any kind of social organization. If this is in fact the university’s stance, it hardly constitutes an “offer”, it is a coercive ultimatum.
A year or so ago I was encouraged by the possibility that the university and the Greek-letter organizations would hammer out a reasonable compromise. That hasn’t happened. If it is absolutely necessary for the university to own outright the Greek-letter properties, no one has had the good manners to explain why. Words such as “unworkable” and “not feasible” have appeared in correspondence from the Trustees but no reasons or facts that a student of Don Berry or Jerry Balmuth would find convincing ever turn up. Why is this?
Unlike the “…overwhelmingly favorable” reactions you describe that you hear in your meetings, the correspondence I have seen and the phone conversations I and many of my fellow alumni receive are just the opposite. I believe that many more, older alumni, recent graduates, and current students than you imagine are very much opposed to the forced sale of Greek-letter properties. The university has many other options for achieving the same ends but refuses to consider them or dismisses them out of hand. Why is this?
I enjoyed a splendid education at Colgate. I graduated with
a double-major
in English and Fine Arts in 1967. My son Matthew graduated in 1998 with
Honors in History. We share experiences of academics, fraternity life,
even some of the same professors! Many like us who were content to read
our newsletter, keep up with Colgate friends, and send in our contribution
to the Annual Fund now find ourselves unnecessarily provoked and motivated
to do something about it. I think it is unfortunate that energies and
resources better spent elsewhere may be used to respond to a situation
that could have easily been avoided by toning down the high-handed tactics
of the Trustees. Perhaps some members have been occupied orchestrating
hostile takeovers for too long to have any patience for a balanced, reasoned,
even-handed, approach to negotiation.
I remain hopeful that some wiser head, yours, perhaps, may yet prevail before the sides become intractably entrenched. Divisiveness in a family or an organization is never a good thing and I believe the Trustees have done Colgate no favors by their actions.
I wish you well in your tenure as President and I look forward to any further correspondence you may author.
With best regards,
Arthur H. Oldham, Class of 1967