Jennifer 12.12 class work

Jennifer O'Bryan's 12/12 class work

Date: December 12, 2000

To: Dr. Jesse Rosenblum, Associate Vice President, College Relations

From: Jennifer O'Bryan

Re: Policy on corporate sponsorships

Currently, The College of New Jersey lacks a policy on corporate sponsorship. With some TCNJ students preparing for a showdown if TCNJ agrees to host the Nike-funded Junior Golf program, TCNJ should seriously consider implementing such a policy.

These students are members of the local chapter of Amnesty International, which supports the No-Sweat campaign. This campaign supports protests against companies that use sweatshop labor, and Nike uses this kind of labor in its foreign factories.

If TCNJ had outlined guidelines for reviewing corporate sponsorships, it might have avoided the current situation. This incident has highlighted the need for an official policy, and I would like to make suggestions as to how the policy can be formed.

Foremost, TCNJ should keep in mind the purpose of both the corporate sponsorship and the event. Is the sponsor being used to enhance an event or is the event being created to enhance the sponsor? In the case of the Junior Golf program, the program is not being used as a vehicle to promote Nike. Nike is being used to enhance the program.

Once the purposes of the corporate sponsorship and the events are determined, TCNJ should review the profile of the corporation. Is it involved in any controversies? Could those controversies manifest themselves on campus in the form of student protests? Does the corporation's mission statement conflict with that of TCNJ? Does it have interests that are incompatible with TCNJ's mission statement?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions -- and it is likely that a large corporation is not "pure" -- TCNJ has to decide if the event's purpose is great enough that it supercedes the potential conflict. TCNJ also has to decide if it will implement an all-or-nothing policy or a case-by-case policy. While an agreement between TCNJ and a corporation does not signal that TCNJ supports the corporation's products and actions, some might interpret the relationship as such. Will TCNJ turn down all "dirty" corporate sponsorships, or will it weigh the benefits versus the consequences?

These guidelines can be formed by, initially, sending out a campus-wide announcement about the creation of a Standards Committee. The entire campus would be involved in the creation of the committee, and all feedback would be factored into the final product. The committee should be composed of faculty, administration, alumni and students. Once the committee is formed, another campus-wide announcement would be sent out to generate feedback on the guidelines. That feedback will be incorporated into the final set of guidelines.

To gather information about the corporation, to interpret the corporate sponsorship guidelines and to make a final decision about the corporate sponsorship, TCNJ should form a Sponsorship Committee that provides a forum for faculty, administration and students to express their opinions and knowledge of the corporation and the potential sponsorship. Had a Sponsorship Committee been formed before the current Nike incident, it is possible that a quick and easy decision could have been made. Students who are against Nike’s involvement in the Junior Golf program would have made their viewpoints known in an official forum, and they would have felt as if TCNJ took their concerns seriously. While the Sponsorship Committee may have given less weight to the arguments of the students against Nike’s involvement, TCNJ would be in a better position to address protests if it is decided to go forward with a Nike-funded program.

As college students become more active in social causes, and as more corporations and colleges reach out to each other for mutually beneficial relationships, there will be more conflicts that mirror the Nike incident. Now that TCNJ has entered the "big leagues" in terms of experiencing its own potential public relations nightmare with a student backlash, it would be dangerous to continue functioning without an official policy on corporation sponsorships.