Photo by Robert Huskey/Daily Titan
Titan Fund has contacted a number of recently graduated Cal State Fullerton students over the summer, asking if they would like to contribute by making a donation to their alma mater.
Titan Fund is a division within University Advancement with the sole purpose of contacting and building relationships with CSUF students, alumni, parents and friends.
These efforts are made annually.
Titan Fund callers fill recipients in regarding news and upcoming university events, as well as collect contributions from the outreach to help benefit the university’s needs.
The money raised by the Titan Fund center goes to scholarship accounts and raises money for the eight colleges, improvements in the library, student affairs, academic programs and athletics.
The Titan Fund callers are students themselves, both alumni and undergraduates — about 30 callers who contact more than 10,000 people per semester.
Though many graduates would love to be able to help out and make their contribution to the university, they cannot believe how quickly the Titan Fund pursued them.
An alumna of spring 2012, Veronica Patino, 22, said she was contacted about one or two months after she graduated.
“I was kind of surprised, I wasn’t expecting it at all,” she said.
Many students who have just graduated do not necessarily have a full-time job lined up with the substantial amount of extra cash to donate.
Patino, as well as other students, feels the pressure to want to help out her alma mater and yet feels the pain in the pocket from just having left an institution of high cost.
“I personally didn’t donate,” Patino said.
Patino, who appreciates and admires her alma mater, said she feels Titan Fund should not approach students who have just graduated. She added that she had been approached about possibly donating even before she graduated from school, during the grad expo fair.
Lan Pham, 22, who also graduated in spring, was also approached at the grad expo about contributing to the school.
Pham also believes recent grads should not be asked to donate.
“The targets for donations shouldn’t be recent grads,” said Pham. “We’re sick of paying money for all these fees that we just left behind.”
Pham recalled when one of her political science professors said to her class that not a lot of people were donating to the school, and that donations had been very few.
Spring alumnus Kenny Taylor, 22, said being asked to donate so soon is ridiculous.
“Most graduates are strapped with debt and were just thrown into a tough job market” Taylor said. “I’m sure the last thing on their mind is giving back to a school system that’s already taken so much (money) from them.”
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