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"Hello,
Reverend...?"
In early February, reverends, pastors, deacons, and other members
of the clergy across the nation heard a call. Not from God, but
from Kristin Clark and A.J. Thomas, M.Div. students, and a few
of their classmates who volunteered to participate in the Annual
Fund Phonathon, which is basically half-phonathon, half-party when
you factor in the Maggiano's dinner and the free candy.
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Unlike most professional schools at Duke, which use paid callers
to solicit alumni, Divinity relies on student volunteers to make
cold calls a little warmer and dinner-disturbing rings only mildly
irritating, and to connect people who, because they share the same
divinity school, might have something to talk about. "I get
this instant connection with alumni," says Thomas, a second-year
student from Niagara Falls, New York, who is preparing for ordination
in the United Methodist Church. "Even if they graduated in
the Thirties or Forties, there's just a certain connection among
people who've gone through Duke Divinity School."
Even without that connection, though, Divinity students have the
added leverage of raising money, albeit indirectly, for God, and
that is sure to weigh on the mind. Particularly the mind full of
biblical verse--Matthew 19:24 ("It is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God,") or 2 Corinthians 9:7 ("God loves a
cheerful giver.").
And alumni love a cheerful caller. Over the course of the night,
Amens and God Bless You's and Grace and Peace Be With You's flooded
the lines, and it wasn't long before the dollar amount, scrawled
on a chalkboard in Room 208 Hudson Hall, the engineering building
on Science Drive, exceeded the calculations of the sprawling equations
left over from a class lesson on the Fourier Transform earlier
that day. "We're going for $5,000 tonight," announced
Julie Anderson M.Div. '98, a Divinity development officer and Mississippi
Methodist, who organized the event. "We're almost there. Keep
it up. Who wants a prize?"
Incentives, the mainstay of any serious fund-raising effort, lay
on the table in plain view of the callers. Raising $100 in pledges
would get you a king-sized candy bar; $200, a gift certificate
to Bruegger's Bagels on Ninth Street, a Blue Devil baby bib, or
a hardcover book (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here
for? or The History of Religion); and the top dollar amount at
the end of the day, the grand prize, a night's stay at the Washington
Duke Inn. But the incentives weren't really necessary because callers
enjoyed the good conversation and, in the absence of a real person,
good answering-machine recordings: from a pastor in Ohio, "This
is the day the Lord has made. Please leave a message"; from
a reverend in California, "Grace and Peace Be Unto You. Shalom,
shalom. Beeeep."
Generally speaking, the Divinity School is very good at raising
money. As part of the Campaign for Duke, it raised $102 million,
exceeding its first goal of $35 million and its second goal of
$85 million and all other goals in between that and $102 million.
In the last year alone, gifts and pledges to the Divinity School
totaled $12.3 million, which will help fund the ongoing construction
of a $22-million addition to the building--including the 315-seat
Goodson Chapel; a 177-seat lecture hall; classrooms; office suites;
a new bookstore; and a dining area with terrace--to be completed
in the fall of 2005.
The phonathon callers, however, were raising money to support student
financial aid, which depends on the goodwill of people who preach
goodwill for a living, which doesn't pay so much. "They really
want to give," says Clark, a first-year student and a Nazarene
from Nashville. "And if they just can't afford to--like a
lot of the United Methodist retirees who get these lousy retirements--they
feel really bad about it."
Sometimes people who were thought to be alumni turned out to have
nothing to do with Duke except that they shared a name with somebody
who did. Still, they would comment on the basketball team. And
then sometimes the misidentification went in the opposite direction,
like the time Lindsey Cole, a third-year student, was taken for
the mistress of the pastor she had asked to speak with: "So,
how long have you been seeing Sam?" the woman who answered
hissed.
But such cases were rare. "Most of the time, people just wanted
to reminisce about their Duke experience," says Clark. "They
tell you how much they're indebted to such a wonderful place. They'll
say they're sorry, but they can only give $25 or $50. And I say,
'Don't be ashamed of that. Everything helps.' And it just makes
you grateful to be where you are."
--Patrick Adams
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