Who's "we"? As I recall, this university is being built with Tom Monaghan's money, so it likely reflects his arrogance.Many of us have fundraising letters from Ave Maria sitting here and there in our house. Monaghan provided most of the seed money, but of course seed money is just the beginning of what they need. This university is supposedly a conservative orthodox university. It will flop if they chose to ignore the smaller donors, most of whom will be repulsed by taking all their money and building a greenhouse. Donations will dry up, some people will lose interest in the new university, etc.
Over the past couple of years my wife and I have given Ave Maria donations totaling a few thousand dollars - we're not big donors, but we're reliable small donors.
As small donors, we don't feel entitled to make decisions about architecture. Now, I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I actually like the way that church looks. But I really believe that even if we didn't like it that it wouldn't matter to us.
Architecture doesn't matter. Boston College and Georgetown have, regrettably, received much more money from us (in tuition). Their architecture is beautiful - but we wouldn't give them a dime in donations.