Eggs Over Easy
University Raises Cash the Simple Way
The first annual University Egg Drive, a new initiative designed to raise money while also serving the community, will begin next weekend. From an e-mail sent by University President Lee Bollinger: “Are you a young woman between the ages of 18-24 currently attending an Ivy League institution? Would you like to help another woman get pregnant? If so, egg donation might be for you.”
Interested women will have a chance to donate their eggs next Thursday through Sunday, on College Walk at any of several mobile surgery units. Health Services representatives say that the whole procedure should take less than four hours, and women will get free juice afterward, as well as a button displaying the “Beggin’ to Hope” slogan.
“We’re super-excited about this,” said Dr. Elizabeth Breck. “Like they say, on a national scale, one in 350,000 donates, but one in 290,000 needs.”
In addition to giving hope to barren women, the drive should raise a substantial amount of money for the University. Wealthy, impotent couples are often willing to pay as much as $25,000 for Ivy League caliber eggs.
“You can’t ignore that kind of profit,” Bollinger said. “It’s essentially free money. These people are really desperate.”
The student council has organized a Get-Out-the-Eggs initiative designed to inform eligible women about the drive, including posters in locations frequented by attractive women with high SAT scores.
“It’s a particular kind of woman they’re after here,” said Student Council representative Mark Castrolano, CC ‘08. “We think she might be in the library.”
Nonetheless, some students have expressed concerns about the idea, concerns that some say should have been obvious before the egg drive was even launched.
“Some of the egg requests are awfully ethnospecific,” said Marla Forden, CC ’08. “Why do they need specifically Ashkenazi Jewish eggs or Indian eggs? But I guess that’s ultimately a minor drawback.”
William Pander, dean of Financial Initiatives, first seized upon the idea of creating an egg drive while reading the back of a New York Post that someone had dropped in the subway.
“Sometimes you find useful ideas in strange places. In a way, I guess I just got lucky,” he said. “And of course, the University did, too.”