IU Announces Largest Endowment Campaign in History for Bloomington Campus

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University has officially announced the largest campaign in its history to raise funds for endowments for faculty and undergraduate and graduate students on the Bloomington campus.

The goal for the Endowment Campaign for Indiana University Bloomington is a total of $350 million by the year 2000, including $150 million for new endowments and $200 million for ongoing support.

According to IU Foundation President Curtis R. Simic, the $150 million will create endowed faculty chairs and professorships and student scholarships and fellowships.

Gifts to date have established the first endowed chairs for the School of Music and the School of Education. A $1 million gift from the Cook Group Companies Inc. established the Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Chair of Teacher Education, and the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies was made possible through a $1.5 million gift from the Starling Foundation.

An anonymous donor established the Child Development Professorship in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, which is the school's first, and Walden University funded the Walden Endowed Librarian position in the IU Libraries.

The campaign's largest individual gifts to date will be announced within the next few days.

Emphasizing the magnitude of the effort, Simic compared it to the university's Campaign for Indiana during the 1980s, which raised money for capital construction. Bloomington's share of that campaign was slightly over $120 million.

According to IU President Myles Brand, there are several reasons for the campaign. For one, although IU is a public institution, its percentage of support from the state of Indiana has been decreasing for at least two decades and currently accounts for less than 25 percent.

"In the past, we could count on state and federal governments to provide funding for operations and some quality improvements, but that's no longer the case," Brand said. "There's absolutely no doubt that the continuation of the university's excellence requires an alternative funding source."

By their nature, endowments offer "steady, reliable growth income," he said. A specific portion of each endowment is spent, but the remainder goes back into the fund to keep it growing. "Endowments will never be a substitute for state support," Brand stated, "but they can certainly offset the impact of changing economic and political climates."

IU ranks near the bottom of the Big Ten in the funding for student support and in endowed chairs and professorships, Brand noted. "This isn't simply a matter of numbers -- it defines the essence of a university. Excellent faculty create an intellectual atmosphere that affects everything on a campus, from the classroom and the laboratory to the research and performance activities."

The caliber of faculty, he said, directly impacts the quality of the education and service a university provides. "To retain the excellence of our current faculty and ensure that we continue to attract top-quality scholars and teachers, we must provide the resources."

The campaign's effort to raise funds for fellowships and scholarships is designed to make college more affordable for hard-working and talented students, Brand added. "We believe this will result in greater persistence on the part of our students, higher graduation rates and an additional incentive for the most motivated students to consider an IU education."

Another historic aspect of this campaign is the overwhelming response from the faculty of the Bloomington campus, said Simic, who again compared it to the previous effort: "The total giving from faculty in the Campaign for Indiana was $4 million for the Bloomington campus, but the current amount for the Endowment Campaign is $13 million and still climbing," he remarked. "The faculty effort is unprecedented. I'm not aware of any public university campaign with this kind of faculty support."

For more information, contact George Vlahakis, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0085 or 812-855-3911, gvlahaki@indiana.edu