At NYU, Cash, Drinks & Photos For a Good Cause

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The New York Sun

If all goes as planned today, dozens of New York University students will walk to an undergraduate dormitory and present a total of $32,000 in cash to a fellow student.


And, if all goes as planned, that student will photograph the money, which will be spread carefully over the torso of a naked female student sprawled across a dorm-room mattress.


While the photo shoot is in progress, the students who donated the money will be drinking at a nearby bar. Afterward, according to the plan, the student photographer will meet the students and return the $32,000. For their troubles, he will pay their tab.


So goes one of the more intriguing fund-raising events cooked up at Washington Square.


The photographer is an NYU senior, Gary He, who is designing a 9-inch-by-12-inch calendar to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Some of the months in the calendar will be paired with photographs of NYU students – who volunteered as models – posing beside a pool table at a popular undergraduate hangout or strolling under Washington Arch just after sunrise.


For September, the start of the undergraduate year, Mr. He, 20, decided to make a statement about tuition, which at NYU now stands at $31,690 a year for full-time undergraduates – a total that does not include room and board and books and supplies. The model, he said, will pose with a surprised expression, to symbolize students’ astonishment at the price of education.


Recruiting for the shoot was set in motion Friday, when Mr. He sent friends an e-mail with the subject line: “Important … Need to borrow your money… free beer.”


In the body of the e-mail, he mapped out his idea.


“A student will be lying in bed with 32,000 USD cash,” he wrote. “The only problem is that I do not have 32,000 USD in cash. That is where all of you come in. A thousand here, a thousand there, and we’ll have it.”


Mr. He, a former photography intern at The New York Sun and former photo editor at the Washington Square News student newspaper, said “about 10” students have agreed to lend him money for today’s photoshoot, which he said would last between one and two hours.


By late afternoon yesterday, he said he was still $15,000 short and was waiting on some more of his friends to call back. If he doesn’t amass $32,000, he says he will cancel the shoot.


For students who are anxious about walking around with $1,000 or more, Mr. He says he will provide escorts from the ATM or bank to the dormitory on Water Street. In his e-mail, he noted that the dormitory is “covered in security cameras” and “has four NYU protection officers on hand at any given time.”


He said he’s as confident in his ability to safeguard the cash as “any student would be in NYU protection services’ ability to prevent a rape or attack in an NYU dorm.”


Among the potential complications he has considered is the university’s reaction to the photo shoot. He said he’s aware that he doesn’t have the university’s permission to use an NYU dorm room in such a manner and predicts NYU officials will try to shoot down the shoot.


“That would be a problem,” an NYU spokesman, John Beckman, said of Mr. He’s plan. “You can’t use dormitory rooms for commercial purposes. You can’t run a business out of a residence hall.”


Mr. He said he if he runs into trouble from NYU officials, he’ll simply relocate the shoot to a friend’s apartment.


(Late last night, Mr. He said he tried to enter the Water Street Residence but was not allowed to sign in.)


The university has already denied Mr. He permission to use “New York University” in the name of the calendar. Because he was raising money for charitable purposes, university administrators took his request seriously, Mr. Beckman said, but ultimately declined to have an official association with the calendar because “it could have been precedent-setting in a way that could have been problematic.”


Mr. He said calendar proceeds – after subtracting production costs – would go to support an annual fundraising event, Relay for Life, that is associated with the American Cancer Society. He expects to complete the calendar within the next week and is aiming to raise more than $20,000.


Next April, Mr. He and other students plan to camp out at the school’s Coles Sports Center for a festive event in which teams of participants circle a track continuously for hours. NYU is among dozens of schools across the nation to participate in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.


A spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society in New York and New Jersey, Ana Marengo, said her office was “not aware of this particular fund-raiser.”


The New York Sun

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