Richard Sundt on RG Letter and UO Foundation

Richard Sundt emailed us a bit more background on his RG letter, regarding the full page ad from the UO Foundation Trustees on the Knight donations:

What I wanted to say in the ad, but dropped it (and a few other things) in order to observe the 250-word limit, is that this was a FULL page ad, in the form of a short letter to the Knights (RG, A5,  18 Aug 2010) .  The size and prominence of the ad is one of the issues and reveals the political nature of this very special thank you.  The timing is also an issue, prompted by having to defend a $41 million gift which has come in for criticism as of late.

Thus, the nature, tone and purpose of the letter goes beyond what is appropriate in terms of a Foundation word of thanks, and that is why, if the Foundation wants to politicize Knight gifts, then it should be at the board members’ expense. Then, too, it should not be written on behalf of anyone but themselves.

Clearly part of the agenda, as you note, is to put academics in its place, as ungrateful of Knight’s generosity, by outlining all major academic donations, and generalizing on athletics, which is the far vaster recipient of Nike largesse. Finally, the letter says nothing about what the faculty (with often little or no help from Knight (by the way only part of the Knight Library is a Knight gift) have contributed to the excellence of the University of Oregon (see letter transcribed below). 

Then, on the moral side of this, some have given far more relative to their means than have the Knights, but their contributions are not thanked in the same public way. 

Richard

The text of the RG Ad: 

Dear Penny and Phil, On behalf of 180,000 alumni worldwide, students and faculty, we thank you for your generous support of the University of Oregon over the years.  From the Knight Library, to the Knight Law School, to endowed chairs and professorships across campus, to athletics, your time and money have helped to make the University of Oregon the excellent institution that it is today. Thank you for just doing it. Sincerely, University of Oregon Foundation Board of Trustees

I hope that the Foundation trustees will use this episode to try and build some bridges to the faculty and students. There is a lot of very understandable ambivalence about the Arena, the Jock Box, athletics in general, and Phil Knight’s role in particular. Instead of reasoned discussion, we get this sort of silly boosterism from them. Not good.