Monday, March 3, 1997
CAMPAIGN:
University leader considers higher goal for public phaseBy Mason
Stockstill
Daily Bruin Contributor
UCLA’s fund raising program has brought in more money than
expected this year, Chancellor Charles E. Young said in a press
conference Monday.
The success of the fund raising campaign has led the chancellor
to consider a higher goal for the campaign, which will enter its
public stage on May 17.
According to the department of Development and External
Relations, as of late this month $116 million had been raised in a
drive beginning July 1. This total does not include the $25 million
gift recently bestowed upon the UCLA Medical Center by former
Disney executive Michael Ovitz.
In the 1995-96 fiscal year, UCLA fund-raisers collected nearly
$191 million in donations.
The short-term goal of the campaign is for funds raised since
July 1995 to reach a total of $400 million by May 17, when the
public phase of the campaign will officially be launched.
"We’ve done better than I thought we’d do," Young said. "The
goal is going to be higher than I would have thought at the time
(of the campaign’s start).
"Last year was far and away the best year in fund raising that
we’ve ever had, and I think this year is going to be better than
last year."
While there is no specific goal for the campaign, when it is
formally announced in May it will likely be "in the billion-dollar
range," said Rhea Turteltaub, interim assistant vice chancellor of
development.
The 1996-97 fiscal period is turning out to be a banner year for
fund raising for the College of Letters and Sciences as well, said
Judy Smith, associate director of development for the college.
"The College of Letters and Science has had their best year
ever. It’s been a great year for humanities as well as
sciences."
The boom in this year’s fund raising spree is largely attributed
to the reputation of the university as an institution of higher
learning.
"UCLA is widely acknowledged as being worthy of support," said
development department spokeswoman Karen Mack. "A lot of alumni are
concerned, because they don’t want the university’s quality as an
educational institution to go down."
As usual, the Medical Center is by and large the recipient of
the most donations, followed by the Anderson School and the College
of Letters and Science.
"The Medical Center is a big attraction to potential donors,"
Smith said. "Something to be proud of (like the Medical Center)
adds attraction for donors."
Despite all this praise, however, there are some who see UCLA’s
increased dependence on private donations as a sign that the
university is becoming more like a private school, and that perhaps
UCLA will no longer be able to serve the need of the community,
particularly in the area of providing affordable quality
education.
"The danger in privatization is that we lose focus of affordable
education, and as a public institution we also abandon the goals of
providing accessible education to all qualified students," said
undergraduate President John Du.
However, Smith contends that community support of the university
is a good sign.
"I think it’s healthy to have a show of support from the
public," Smith said. "It shows that the public is comfortable
enough with UCLA to make a significant investment in the
university."
Unfortunately for most students, all this fund raising does not
go towards lowering registration fees.
Only a small portion of funds raised are unrestricted donations,
which are distributed at the chancellor’s discretion. Most other
gifts are specified for a particular department or project.
Often, donations come in the form of much-needed equipment, such
as powerful computers and research tools, or as funds for capital
improvement.
Another option for donors is to endow a chair in a particular
department to help supply funds for research by a particular
professor, thus making it less important for professors to jockey
for research grants and easier to hire teaching and research
assistants.
However, while funds do not go directly to lowering student
fees, scholarships are often directly endowed by donors.
In fact, scholarship funding will become a core part of the new
and recently revised campaign, Turteltaub said.
"I think it is attractive to donors that our core message is
raising funds for student scholarships," she said.
This could potentially have the same effect as lowering
registration fees, since there will be more funds available for
distribution in scholarship form.
But as the numbers add up now, scholarships make up about 7
percent to 10 percent of all donations, said Michael Eicher,
associate vice chancellor of development.
"That’s if you’re only talking about funds that are specifically
allocated to be awarded as scholarships," Eicher said. "All of the
funds received go towards raising the quality of education that
students receive here."
An integral part of the fund raising campaign is the mammoth
network of volunteers that work together towards the goal of
raising money for UCLA’s campaign.
There are roughly 260 volunteers on the board of the UCLA
Foundation, and well over 1,000 involved in leadership positions in
the entire effort.
In addition, each school has its own department of development,
which is staffed by still more volunteers. The alumni association
also has a large staff of volunteers, all of whom work towards the
same goal.
"It is the volunteer’s role to work within the community and
identify where potential donors’ interests lie," Turteltaub
said.
Volunteers from UCLA’s ranks of alumni have also been hard at
work gathering donations from the community and from within their
own ranks.
"The Alumni Association has been very engaged in raising money
this year," Turteltaub continued.
"In the past, alumni giving has stood at only 15 percent, and if
we could increase the raw number of alumni who give by about
10,000, that could be a very large increase in donations."