White-Elephant Gifts

One of the tasks administrators, including department chairs, often undertake is donor relations. I don't mean donors who bring checks but rather donors who bring "things." I have heard story after story about the strange and diverse things that had come into departmental offices: collections of National Geographic, blurry snapshots of grandma's vacation in England's Lake District, Uncle Jack's butterfly collection, Aunt Junie's hand-painted china, or even a group of random books purchased online.

A few donations are helpful or even valuable; when such lightning strikes, it is exciting and noteworthy. Most, however, are just really not that useful. Online archives have replaced many of the magazine and photo needs, most amateur specimen collections are Louis Vuitton Noeof limited pedagogical use, and other donations are sort of a different form. of the Christmas fruitcake swap. In the worst-case scenario, some donations are expensive to maintain; a gift of a valuable art collection is wonderful but without the money necessary to maintain it, and its very specific space needs, rigorous environmental controls, and even security, such a gift can be very costly.

Any accepted donation must be taken seriously, however, which means time spent by someone in the institution, for some sort of evaluation (for tax reasons), some sort of inventory process, and so forth. Outright rejection of the donation is rarely an option, so if the word gets out locally that a charitable donation receipt can be earned through such gifts, the effect can snowball into a significant time commitment for someone on the campus.

Do you have any experience with such white-elephant gifts? What were the strangest ones you have seen? What were the best?

Hollins University's creative writing program Louis Vuitton Monogram designated the chicken as its "totemic animal" (a phrase coined by longtime professor R.H.W. Dillard), based on a long, involved story concerning Alfred Hitchcock movies and the theory that there is a chicken or a chicken reference to be found in every film. In the 1980s, Hollins alum and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor presented the program with a stuffed chicken - it was subsequently enshrined in a glass case with a brass plaque and is proudly displayed in Swannanoa Hall, the creative writing program's home.The totemic chicken! I like it.

We have a neighborhood resident who seems to have some developmental or perhaps personality challenges. He decided to give the university a collection of cheaply-framed paintings, most of which were OK, but then some very ugly ones no one wantedWedding Accessories. He progressed to treating us like a jumble sale, bringing in cheap figurines and stray arrangements of artificial flowers. Thankfully his donations have stopped.

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