College Fund-Raising

To the Editor:

Re: "Academic Industrial Complex" (Arts & Ideas, Sept. 6).

The so-called Faustian bargain, applied to those of us responsible for the advancement of our colleges and universities, is hardly the creation of our times, nor was it judged so evil at its introduction.

At the very beginnings of higher education in America, especially after the Revolution, numerous founders of colleges and universities wished to secure sufficient monies, students and notice for their institutions to flourish. In the process, they were sympathetic to commerce and manufacture, and they displayed a keen sense of what we now call marketing and branding.

Dr. Benjamin Rush—a signer of the Declaration of Independence and founder of several colleges—embraced this bargain with ironic humor. In a letter of 1784 to a friend helping him raise monies for Dickinson College, he stated: "Go on with your collections. Get money—get it honestly if you can. But get money for our College."

WILLIAM G. DURDEN
President, Dickinson College
Carlisle, Pa., Sept. 10, 2003