By Alissa AndersonSpecial to the Chronicle

With the renaming of Hofstra’s medical school following a $61 million donation, students should be questioning what exactly is happening behind the scenes of the Hofstra administration. Is it right or fair for anyone who donates a large amount of money to have a school become their namesake? I say absolutely not.

Take, for example, Peter S. Kalikow. In the late 1980s, Kalikow owned the New York Post, but in 1991 Kalikow filed for personal bankruptcy protection and left many employees without pensions. As a real-estate developer, he was known for taking down rent-regulated apartments to put up luxury housing. He donated $449,000 to the presidential campaign of his longtime friend, Donald Trump. Both Hofstra’s School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and the Center for the Study of the American Presidency bear this man’s name.

Donors like Kalikow cast a shameful light on Hofstra and should not be permitted to have a school named in their likeness. Rather, schools should be named after people who have done substantial and commendable work in the field that pertains to that particular school’s field of study. Furthermore, the administration needs to be more open with students about who is donating to the university, whose names are attached to individual schools and where donation money is going.

In order to be considered reputable and respectable, Hofstra should not be taking donations from individuals or organizations that do not align with the interests of the student body. The administration puts out a positive message about how “everyone is welcome here,” yet has a school named after an outspoken supporter of Trump’s decidedly unwelcoming immigration policies. This hypocrisy is reason for concern amongst students who are told that they are safe here, yet are left to wonder if they would still be “safe” if that was not in the financial interests of the administration.

Speaking of financial interests, where is all this donated money going anyway? In a perfect world, it should be used to better the programs within that school or even the university as a whole. It should be given to assist more students attending Hofstra on a scholarship. It should be used to pay student employees minimum wage. Sadly, this is not a perfect world. New business schools are put up, the Rathskeller is renovated and President Stuart Rabinowitz takes home a nearly $1 million salary. Meanwhile, tuition increases, buildings go without necessary renovations and student employees are still only paid $7.25 an hour. This can and should be a point of contention between the administration and the student body, as our complaints and requests are ignored while large sums of money are being put towards fixing things that simply aren’t broken.

The administration needs to be honest with the student body about the sources of its sizable donations and to what causes they will be put towards. If there really is just no money in the budget that can be used to rectify our concerns, so be it, but somehow I don’t think that’s the case.

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