News from
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Communications and Publications, Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544
Tel 609/258-3601; Fax 609/258-1301
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 9, 1995
Contact: Justin Harmon (609) 258-5732
Princeton to Launch $750 Million
Anniversary Campaign
PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 9 -- Princeton University will launch
tomorrow a $750 million fund-raising campaign in honor of the
250th anniversary of its founding in 1746.
The five-year Anniversary Campaign for Princeton will seek to add
to the University's resources in five major areas: unrestricted
support; undergraduate education and campus life; graduate
education; academic and research initiatives; and facilities for
research and education.
"The 250th anniversary of the founding of Princeton reminds us
that as members of the Princeton community, we hold the University
as a public trust; its distinction must be earned one generation
at a time," said Princeton President Harold T. Shapiro. "This is
an occasion both to look back with pride and to look forward with
purpose. We must ask ourselves what we need to do to enable
Princeton to move forcefully ahead so that our tercentennial can
be celebrated with as much enthusiasm and satisfaction as our
250th."
The campaign responds to priorities set during a strategic
planning process initiated by Shapiro and the Princeton trustees
four years ago. This effort identified core commitments at the
heart of the enterprise at Princeton, including:
- a single faculty engaged in teaching, research and governance;
- an exceptional student body, admitted essentially without
regard to financial need;
- a devotion to undergraduate education that is distinctive among
research universities, with a special emphasis on independent
work;
- a diverse, residential campus community of full-time students,
who learn with and from each other; and
- a commitment to excellence in both undergraduate and graduate
education and in scholarship and research.
Preserving these commitments and enhancing Princeton's leadership
role in areas of education and research constitute a considerable
challenge. Princeton faces an environment characterized by an
increasingly global economic and cultural life, a continued
escalation in the pace of discovery and innovation, and a broader
dispersion of advanced capacities in science and technology. There
are new and transforming technologies of all kinds; growing
international dimensions in teaching, learning and scholarship; an
explosion of information and the means to obtain and share it.
Yet, with all these new opportunities, American universities have
entered a period of constrained resources, with slowed growth in
family incomes; shrinking federal funds for science, humanities
and the arts; and an ever more competitive philanthropic
environment.
The goals for each of the five broad fund-raising areas are as
follows:
- Unrestricted support: Annual Giving provides over $20 million,
or nearly 10 percent, of Princeton's overall budget for
educational and general expenditures each year. The University
will seek to increase Annual Giving to new and sustainable levels
that will yield a total of $125 million over the five-year course
of the campaign.
- Undergraduate education and campus life: The University seeks
to raise $300 million in support for undergraduate teaching, aid
to students and enhancements in the quality of life on campus.
These funds will be used to support outstanding teaching,
curricular innovation, and student independent research. Princeton
also aims to sustain its tradition of need-blind admissions and to
increase its capacity to offer undergraduates experience living
and working in foreign countries. It plans to construct a Campus
Center to encourage interaction among all members of the campus
community and to pursue a program of renovation of undergraduate
dormitories to reduce overcrowding. It will seek funds to replace
Palmer Stadium and to pursue other enhancements of the athletic
program. It will also expand and enhance opportunities for
community service by students, faculty and alumni.
- Graduate education: At a time when federal support for both
research and graduate education is declining, Princeton seeks to
raise $55 million in endowed funding for student support and
graduate seminars.
- Academic and research initiatives: To remain vital, a
university must have the capacity to sustain successful programs
and to expand into new areas. Princeton will seek $155 million to
invest in programs across the range of academic specialties. Some
initiatives, including programs in environmental science and
policy and in the humanities, are interdisciplinary and will draw
on the recognized strengths of several departments. Others, such
as American cultures, will take existing programs into new areas
of inquiry. Funding will also be used to expand successful
initiatives, as in Women's Studies and Jewish Studies.
- Facilities for education and research: Princeton seeks to
sustain its library in a rapidly changing technological and
economic environment. Technology has also transformed methods of
instruction in virtually all disciplines. Several existing
academic buildings -- those housing Visual Arts, Music and
Architecture -- require significant renovation, and new facilities
for teaching and research are essential in engineering and
physics, among other areas. Princeton seeks to secure $115 million
in funds for these purposes.
The campaign begins on campus November 10 with activities for
volunteer fund-raisers, including several colloquia, a chamber
music concert and a celebratory dinner.
The fund-raisers, led by campaign co-chairs John J.F. Sherrerd
'52, Dennis J. Keller '63 and Janet Morrison Clarke '75, will
build on six decades of Annual Giving and nearly 35 years of
sustained capital gifts programs, which have drawn on the
generosity of undergraduate and graduate alumni, parents,
corporations, foundations and many special friends of the
University. Princeton boasts some 80 active alumni classes and 140
regional alumni associations throughout the world. Fully 88
percent of all living undergraduate alumni have made a gift to the
University at one time or another during their lives, and more
than 55 percent contribute unrestricted funds each year through
Annual Giving.