A CLASS DIVIDED?

With or without the BSA’s complaints, students have voiced concerns that the Senior Gift, Senior Gift Plus, and now Senior Gift Plus Plus campaigns are dividing the senior class.

Karin C. Shieh ’05, Adams House Representative on the Senior Class Committee said that she feels that the Senior Gift Plus campaign detracts from the work of the Senior Gift house representatives, which includes promoting class spirit.

“I feel like divestment is a great cause to work towards, but I feel that senior gift is not the right target for it. These are two separate issues,” Shieh said.

But Mahan said that Senior Gift Plus does not diminish class spirit, and he said that he thinks it will not affect long term giving rates of the Class of 2005.

“We are supporters of Harvard, and we will be lifelong supporters,” Mahan said.

“They want to train seniors for a culture of giving, while we want to train seniors in critical thinking about giving to institutions,” he added.

Vascellaro mentioned that last year an alternative senior gift was proposed, but the campaign was much less organized than Mahan and Terry’s.

“They’ve used our structure to some degree and that distinguishes them from past alternative campaigns,” she said.

But Vascellaro is doubtful that there will be any long-term effect of this year’s Senior Gift Plus campaign. By the time of the kickoff dinner, the campaign had already raised $11,000 and some houses had already exceeded a 10 percent participation rate.

“I don’t think it will hurt our class in the long run,” Vascellaro said.

—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu.