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I think liberals and liberal policies are a real wold problem. Will any of the money be spent on defeating them?

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on the contrary - the money will be spent to align our University with PC matters.

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Can someone explain what this is about?

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President Young sees Aggie Fans at a football game as his personal billboard to hold up a terrible slogan that can be easily used to mock A&M football.

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Maybe this whole thing is a test to see who will actually lead by example and who will blindly follow!

"If not us then who" - You put this up, out of context, at a football game, and it's likely to get spoofed for all the teams ahead of us in the polls.

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Gameday production has already been ruined at every stadium across the country. At least the A&M brass sort of met us halfway when we all *****ed about 4 years ago when every stop in play was a commercial, honoring someone, etc. Now it's just 90% of the time.

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This. They hardly let the damn Aggie Band play anymore (but visiting bands play non-stop, I mean why not?) It's sad. I loved the game experience in the 1980s & 90s. Was actually about football, spirit and college. Now we're the mini-NFL.

19,802 was a great year, wasn't it?

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Gameday production has already been ruined at every stadium across the country. At least the A&M brass sort of met us halfway when we all *****ed about 4 years ago when every stop in play was a commercial, honoring someone, etc. Now it's just 90% of the time.

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This. They hardly let the damn Aggie Band play anymore (but visiting bands play non-stop, I mean why not?) It's sad. I loved the game experience int he 19802 & 90s. Was actually about football, spirit and college. Now we're the mini-NFL.

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I agree. One of the reasons I don't watch nfl.

I mean, I get that Young couldn't care less about the football program, that's obvious, but surely this crossed the desk of someone who does? Surely the athletic director got to see this idea? Our white knight Jason Cook?

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19,802 was a great year, wasn't it?

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Yes it was!

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what is it gonna say, or what's the design going to be? I'd like to know now.

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"BUNK MORELAND IS A CONTROL FREAK"

"If not us, then who?"

Well, as it stands today, Ole Miss, LSU, Alabama....

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Can someone explain what this is about?

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President Young sees Aggie Fans at a football game as his personal billboard to hold up a terrible slogan that can be easily used to mock A&M football.

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Yep, that's what I was afraid was. Thanks.

FYI for the University: Your slogan sounds awfully football related, when all season long, TV commercials are talking about "who" is going to make the Playoffs (clearly, not us), and it calls to mind Russell Wilson (NFL QB) in the Super Bowl talking about his father's advice on "why not you?"

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I mean, I get that Young couldn't care less about the football program, that's obvious, but surely this crossed the desk of someone who does? Surely the athletic director got to see this idea? Our white knight Jason Cook?

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I share your unease. For lack of a better term, just feels almost unseemly, like a televangelist begging for money. The only thing that could possibly make it worse is if there's a place to make your pledge and sign your name, address and cell # on the back of each card.

And when it gets politicized?? Because it will get politicized. A&M is one step above Westboro Baptist in some people's estimation. And many of those reside in DC and have a .gov in their email address.

Cross our fingers and hope for the best I guess.

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what is it gonna say, or what's the design going to be? I'd like to know now.

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"BUNK MORELAND IS A CONTROL FREAK"

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It's just a freaking capital campaign. Universities have these all the time. You can probably donate with strings restricting it to scholarships for left-handed redheaded Ag Comm majors and they'll count it, so they can use it to show that we have a generous and involved alumni base compared to other institutions that are doing their capital campaigns with equally cliched slogans.

I think they should put tinfoil hats under the seats.

SIAP, what will the signs say?

Young did say some 15% would go to athletics. Really?!

Bet the first global issue on the list is climate change....

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It's just a freaking capital campaign.

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$ 4 Billion with no stated objective?

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Yes. The stated objective will be some vague thing about improving academics etc. at TAMU. When it comes to cutting checks, you'll have plenty of opportunities to target whatever you want, since you know they ain't gonna turn it down unless it's really out of line. Or you can give based on the idea that you trust the university to use if for something reasonable.

A capital campaign raises money for the endowment, where the spending is based on the investment income. You need a boatload of money to be able to do much of anything.

tsips just did a $3B one. We're A&M so ours has to be bigger.

Point being, other than our desire to show off being bigger than everyone else, this is pretty much business as usual for any university.

Heck, when I saw "largest card stunt" I was almost expecting that they would be in the stands swiping your credit and debit cards.

Is the gigapixel photo for this game going to be taken while the cards are supposed to be held up so that we can zoom in and see who decided not to participate?

I feel like it cant even be called a capital campaign without a stated intent. That intent totally exists, its just a super secret.

Is mirror out Kyle Field finally happening?

More examples of >$1B capital campaigns at universities here.

• Michigan is in a $4B
• Southern Cal $6B
• Harvard is going for $6.5B
• Stanford just finished a $6.2B campaign

The stated objectives are very generic and are on the A&M foundation website:

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Funds derived from the campaign will provide scholarships to enable Texas A&M to compete even more effectively for the best students and help the university recruit and retain more internationally recognized faculty by supporting their research and teaching, he added.

Also, Young noted the additional funding will help provide the best possible facilities to encourage creativity and innovation, and provide access to cutting-edge technology that will keep Texas A&M students and faculty at the forefront of their disciplines.

He said a portion of the funding derived from the campaign will be used to provide support for Texas A&M's athletic programs through more scholarships for student-athletes, enhanced facilities and other resources that will help the university advance in the ranks of the U.S. universities with premier athletic programs.

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Bill Powers, the UT-Austin president, attributed the rush in the final months to donors taking time to evaluate where their gifts could be the most helpful while still counting toward the campaign. "We had time to fine-tune where this money would go and how it would be used," he said in an interview, "and as we've gotten to the end, a lot of people wanted to see it come to fruition."

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Hhmm wonder why people waited to find out which projects they felt were worthwhile enough to support??

Silly people.

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The stated objectives are very generic

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Then they're not stated... right? They are left open ended and vague on purpose, I get that. Im not saying its unheard of or even a bad move, I just think the roll out and using football to advertise it is atrocious. Say "its to grow the endowment to allow us to advance". What's all this leadership BS and PR campaign? Solving the world's problems? What?

Don't think the TAM Foundation is going to put out any messages that would alienate the BMAs. They know where their bread is buttered.

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Bill Powers, the UT-Austin president, attributed the rush in the final months to donors taking time to evaluate where their gifts could be the most helpful while still counting toward the campaign. "We had time to fine-tune where this money would go and how it would be used," he said in an interview, "and as we've gotten to the end, a lot of people wanted to see it come to fruition."

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Hhmm wonder why people waited to find out which projects they felt were worthwhile enough to support??

Silly people.

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As I've been saying. You can give or not based on whether you can find an existing thing that's worthwhile, or if your donation is big enough, the foundation will create one for you. All those will count in the "our campaign was successful" bean counting.

Have you ever even looked at how the foundation solicits donations?

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Except for Michigan, those are private schools. They can raise money for the reanimation of Elvis' body if they so choose and have people stupid enough to give it to them.

If it is for the endowment fund to generate long-term income for the university, sell it that way. Naming rights for chairs and professorships in 'X" field of study. The way it has almost always been done.

A publicity stunt at a football game that will certainly be picked up by ESPN and then Fox, MSNBC, and the network news as just a publicity stunt will look foolish, amateurish and nakedly opportunistic.

There is nothing scholarly, dignified, nor honorable here.

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If you know anything about the campaign and their goal, why would you not want to be apart of this message and participate in it.

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That's the point. We don't know anything about it. And when we ask, they're not telling us.

We're just being told that it's for "address[ing] major societal challenges facing the state, nation and world...[and] providing adequate resources to help solve a variety of "real world" problems.

What the heck does that even mean? What major societal challenges? What real world problems? It's very likely that I don't see eye to eye with a bunch of liberal academics on those "challenges" and "problems." Excuse me if I don't blindly follow. Tell me about it and let me decide whether I support it or not. Don't just give me a card and tell me it's a cool surprise.

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The stated objectives are very generic

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Then they're not stated... right? They are left open ended and vague on purpose, I get that. Im not saying its unheard of or even a bad move, I just think the roll out and using football to advertise it is atrocious. Say "its to grow the endowment to allow us to advance". What's all this leadership BS and PR campaign? Solving the world's problems? What?

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I'm not disagreeing about whether the card stunt is lame. The leadership etc. is part of the normal TAMU pitch that Gates meant when he talked about A&M as a unique American institution. Invest in the leaders of tomorrow to solve the worlds problems, blah, blah, blah. And I admit that at some level I even believe that, even though it's a cliche and there are moments when the students make me wonder it I'm completely naive, nuts, or both.

But people on this thread are reacting to this totally mom and apple pie thing like there's some kind of a conspiracy to use the money to hire transgender climatologists to work on how to process aborted fetuses for CO2 capture.



but of course, being part of the conspiracy, that's what I'd say....