<p>And you don’t get it – it’s precisely because these companies are so dominant in every day life, while cheerfully being content in the status quo (regardless of their PR ad campaigns – actions speak louder than words) that I have a hostility towards them. It’s precisely because they make the plastics in my laptop and in my circuitboards in my physics lab that I have all the more reason to be queasy about them. I never had a choice in the matter. I didn’t have the chance to choose an alternative society of better practices, where I was willing to foot the higher costs in return for responsible industrial practices.</p>
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<p>Sure you could. The Amazon rain forest beckons you. Or there is a tiny Polynesian island with your name on it. The Australian outback. The vast expanse of Alaska. There are many possibilities. You can bail out of modern life in the Evil Empire any time you like. Go for it!</p>
<p>Yes, but I wouldn’t be able to pursue enlightened chemistry.</p>
<p>My dad refuses to buy gas from a certain company because any profits that this company makes allegedly go into the pocket of a South American dictator. If, however, they decided to give him $10,000, I can GUARANTEE he’d take it.</p>
<p>@OP,</p>
<p>Pardon me. I didn’t realize that in your enlightenment, you were deigning to solicit ethical support for your condescension to receive funding from said evil company.</p>
<p>@coereur, “there is a tiny Polynesian island with your name on it”</p>
<p>LOL!</p>
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<p>Sorry, but technology is always a two-edged sword. Pretty much every technology, starting with the invention of stone tools and fire, can be put you uses any one person may like or may disapprove of. If you want to personally use sophisticated chemistry then you are going to have to live in an advanced society that makes use of sophisticated chemistry. And you going to have to put up with the fact that not all other chemists will conform to the theories and practices that you happen to like. They’ve got their own ideas, darn it!</p>
<p>It’s tough, I know, to be a young person who has all the best ideas about how the universe should be run, and then discover that there are a whole lot of other people out there who stubbornly just don’t see it your way. Welcome to adulthood.</p>
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Actually you do, though change is likely to be slow. Join the New Urbanist movement. Get involved in your local planning or zoning boards. Educate people.</p>
<p>This really, really, burns my behind. I’d be very happy to take that funding off your hands and relieve you of this stress. I can’t even tell you the lengths we are going to to pay for our son’s education at UVa. We are proud and happy to do so, but it is not easy. Every member of our family is feeling it. The small amount of funding we receive from AccessUVa is comprised of LOANS my young idealistic friend…not grants (and we were thrilled for the help!). I’m happy to trade.</p>
<p>You absolutely DO have options. My brother was young and idealistic. He simply took at backpack to Europe, traveled until he found his ‘tribe’, and never returned. He is now a very successful business owner overseas and lives by the principles he more closely aligns himself with. You always have a choice.</p>
<p>@OP,</p>
<p>I think you are seriously ethically challenged or simply in total denial. </p>
<p>You complain you are powerless to resist the seduction of the good things in life that big companies make possible, and you turn your nose up at your benefactor. At the same time you maintain you are willing to suck off your benefactor so you can pursue an enlightened path and stick it to them later. </p>
<p>Then you start a thread on this board to fish for sympathy and absolution for your hypocrisy.</p>
<p>“remove current industrial practices from the market”</p>
<p>-yey, follow Spain in self-destruciton. Great idea, worthwhile to get college degree. Make sure to study how exactly it is done, Looking forward to live in real green - in a woods.</p>
<p>Dow is also funding Chem E students in a big way now. This is not a bad thing. Really. [Big</a> donation for chemical engineering - PlasticsNews](<a href=“http://www.plasticsnews.com/blog/2011/10/big_donation_for_chemical_engi.html]Big”>http://www.plasticsnews.com/blog/2011/10/big_donation_for_chemical_engi.html)</p>
<p>evitaperon -</p>
<p>Have you found out which division of DuPont is funding this? Any chance that the money isn’t from DuPont the chemical company itself but some random DuPont heir who long ago rolled his/her evil gains into cleaner investments, or who is just trying to do some good with money he/she doesn’t feel right hanging onto?</p>
<p>Good thing she does not go to Duke, Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford, Vanderbilt or a bunch of other schools funded by former robber barons and or purveyors of death.</p>
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You could move back to Buenos Aires and use the Subte.</p>
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At least they didn’t own slaves.</p>
<p>I’m going to leave Thomas Jefferson out of this since that is not the subject of the OP’s concerns. In doing some research-it seems that Philip Francis DuPont was a loyal alumnus and left $6 million dollars to UVa in his will in 1928. It was a huge amount at the time and greatly increased the University’s endowment. In 2007, the trust was valued at $112 million. The money has provided many fellowships and grants over the years.</p>
<p>The problem with this discussion is that it’s a weak hypo, because Du Pont isn’t nearly evil enough to make this a sensible problem. What if it was, say, a tobacco company? Or a company that makes electric chairs? Or an abortion clinic? I suspect many of us would be sympathetic to the OP’s reaction if the source was something that we thought was deeply evil. But Du Pont? Sorry, just not nearly evil enough.</p>
<p>“Good thing she does not go to Duke, Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford, Vanderbilt or a bunch of other schools funded by former robber barons and or purveyors of death.”</p>
<p>(or Brown or Yale - slave-trade money).</p>
<p>“But Du Pont? Sorry, just not nearly evil enough.”</p>
<p>Ah, but they made Corfam shoes. Introduced at 1964 New York World’s Fair. Totally indestructible. Also totally unwearable without having your feet destroyed. Off the market in 18 months. All the surplus shipped to Afghanistan. The people have been wearing them for 45 years - still indestructible. Their feet hurt so much, there hasn’t been a moment of peace since.</p>
<p>I bought a pair cheap and they were great for restaurant work where you are getting all sorts of gunk and wet stuff on your shoes. Just wiped it off. Had to buy a bit large as they have no give.</p>
<p>There is also a Jessie Ball DuPont trust at UVa established in 1978 to benefit undergrads that need financial aid . Whatever the exact source of the very generous funds, there certainly seems to be no bad intent on anyone’s part, including any benefactors or the University of Virginia. UVa has tried to make strides in helping lower income kids attend over the last few years. The number of Pell grant recipients has been historically quite low but has been rising, thanks in part to the programs like AccessUVa that the OP has clearly benefited from. The OP is indeed very fortunate.</p>