Scholars of higher ed like to bemoan the role of university president becoming Fundraiser-in-Chief. We often mention data indicating the high percentage of time college presidents time spend on fundraising. From HigherEdDive “Fundraising tops the list of duties for college presidents – Many presidents spend the majority of their time cultivating relationships and presenting institutional strengths with potential donors, while balancing shrinking budgets and growing financial needs.”
Based on my reading of higher ed history, this is not a new trend at most colleges – particularly private institutions that don’t have state funding.
“Colonial College Presidents would leave the campus for weeks or months at a time for a “canvassing trip” to distant towns and other states as a fundraising effort. Congregations would continuously raise monies for their affiliated college. Most college presidents were ministers. Experience in passing collection plates and persuading parishioners to tithe was apt preparation for the hardscrabble course of persistent fundraising that a college demanded.”
“The accounts of the founding and early decades of the nine colonial institutions attest that college leaders were constantly required to plunge into external politics. Many college presidents were skilled at this endeavor and seemed to relish the intrigue and negotiations with constituencies outside the college.”
p.s. The only non-Ivy colonial colleges were…Rutgers and William & Mary. The only Ivy League college not a colonial college was…Cornell (100 years younger than the next oldest Ivy). Missing from this map are St. John’s in Annapolis (not NY), Moravian (PA), U. of Delaware, and Washington & Lee (VA).
from Thelin’s History of American Higher Education
Deep Thoughts on Higher Ed 