Earlier this month, the Institute publicly announced the goal of Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: to raise $1 billion by the end of 2008. Last Thursday, Dave Haviland ’64, vice president for institute advancement, shared many of the details of the campaign with the Student Senate.
According to Haviland’s presentation, the campaign’s ‘nucleus phase’ began on July 1, 2000. He described this phase as being a private phase during which not only funding but also the amount of funding believed to be possible is being sought out. Less than a year later, RPI received a pledge from an anonymous individual of a $360 million unrestricted donation to be given over a period of years.
This donation, now called the ‘lead gift’ of the campaign is still one of the largest individual gifts given to a university, and the identity of the donor still remains unannounced. Currently, the campaign has raised over $610 million in cash and pledges and an international rollout is set to run from this fall through next fall. The campaign will make stops in Asian countries, Florida, Los Angeles, and New York City, among many other areas.
One of the slides displayed the names of the other 40 or so schools that have announced campaigns for $1 billion or more. Haviland pointed out that Rensselaer’s total endowment is less than $600 million and that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, has more than ten times the amount of endowment per student that RPI has.
Much of the support for the campaign is being sought out from individuals while other sources include corporations and public organizations. Saying that achieving the goals of the Rensselaer Plan is one of the main priorities of the campaign, he identified four broad areas: people, programs, platforms, and investment.
In the area of staffing, the enumerated priorities of the campaign are building faculty constellations, especially on the “Bio/Info/Nano” areas as Haviland referred to three different areas of technology. He also discussed faculty chairs and building on the Institute’s ability to give out scholarships and fellowships. He pointed out that many scholarships currently given out are actually discounts to the student and not scholarships, as the full amount of money, in some cases, may not actually be coming from the endowment or another source.
Another “Priority Need” identified is building on programs. Plans call much of this spending to go toward work on the academic programs and curricula. Additional funds will be used to fund programs related to research centers, eMPAC, Student Life, FYE, arts and media, athletics, and leadership. Haviland said that greek life fell under the heading of leadership, after he was asked by President of the Interfraternity Council, Charles Centrelli.
The platforms goal of the campaign will help in funding facilities work, such as improvements to the East Campus athletics sites, renovations to the residence halls, the campus, and IT research facilities, as well as helping to upgrade “priority equipment, hardware, and software.” The investment category covers the annual fund and unrestricted gifts to the endowment. The Campaign Lead Gift is not being divided into a category other than investment, as the Institute has not yet decided how to distribute the unrestricted gift.
