Member profile | Logout

Donation helps U. of C. surpass $2 billion fundraising goal

$25 million helps school exceed its fundraising target

By Jodi S. Cohen | Tribune higher education reporter

September 25, 2007

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Furl
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Spurl
- Yahoo

The University of Chicago announced a $25 million donation Monday to support faculty hiring, pushing the university over its $2 billion goal for its 5-year fundraising campaign.

The South Side university is the seventh campus nationwide to raise at least $2 billion during a capital campaign.

Taking liberties with one of Shakespeare's best-known lines, university trustee Paul Yovovich told staff during a celebratory luncheon Monday: "2B or not 2B is no longer the question."

The fundraising campaign, the "Chicago Initiative," originally had been set to end earlier this year, but officials moved the end date to June 2008 after a sluggish start.

The donation announced Monday comes from the family foundation of Jeanette Lerman Neubauer and Joseph Neubauer, a university trustee and 1965 MBA graduate who is chairman and chief executive of Aramark Corp.

The gift establishes the endowed Neubauer Family Fellows Program, which will be used to recruit new faculty members who recently received their PhDs. The program will provide four faculty members annually with research funding for five years.

The first group is expected to be hired by fall 2009 and will be recruited from a wide range of academic disciplines, officials said. The level of funding for the faculty members will depend on the support needed to accomplish their work.

"We want this gift to enhance the university's ability to compete for the very best young scholars," Neubauer said in a statement.

The latest donation brings the total received or pledged during the campaign to $2.13 billion.

About $1.25 billion has been earmarked for faculty and research support. About $530 million is for student programs, including financial aid. An additional $250 million was donated as part of annual giving or for unrestricted purposes.

The money has helped build a new dormitory and facilities for the sciences, athletics and the Graduate School of Business.

But some of the specific campaign goals have not yet been met, and officials plan to focus on raising more money for the sciences and student aid during the next year.

"There are unmet needs across the university and those are the ones where we will focus in the remaining part of the campaign," said Ron Schiller, U. of C.'s vice president for development and alumni relations.

About half of the $2 billion is from donors who contributed at least $5 million each.

The campaign's largest donation, $100 million from an anonymous donor and U. of C. graduate, established the Odyssey scholarships, to be given beginning next year. The program will provide full scholarships for about 800 students a year whose family incomes are less than $60,000.

U. of C. has an endowment of $6.2 billion.

There currently are two dozen universities in the midst of campaigns of at least $1 billion, including the University of Illinois, which earlier this year kicked off a $2.25 billion campaign.

----------

jscohen@tribune.com