Support
from parents and the UI Parents Association is a key part of Iowa’s
excellence, enriching students’ experience is so many ways—from
academic and study advice meted out around the dinner table, to helping
improve quality of life on campus through increased e-mail access, alcohol-free
tailgate parties, and emergency telephones.
Parents have always been involved and interested members of the UI community, and the University is grateful to UI parents for their generous support. The University of Iowa is working successfully to provide the best education possible in this time of nationwide fiscal uncertainty and state budget cuts.
There is big news to share on this front, news that is certainly good and can only serve to make the UI even better!
On June 8, 2002, The University of Iowa launched the public phase of its comprehensive fund-raising campaign, which seeks to generate a total of $850 million in private support for the University by the end of 2005.
Good. Better. Best. Iowa: The Campaign to Advance our Great University, is the largest fund drive in the state of Iowa’s history. The seven-year effort began its quiet phase in 1999. So far, more than $526 million has been raised toward the total campaign goal.
Key objectives of the campaign are to generate:
- $142 million in support for students
- $189 million in support for faculty
- $138 million in support for facilities
- $201 million in support for research and new initiatives
- $30 million in unrestricted gifts
- $150 million in annual and sustaining support for all UI programs
Of greatest interest to parents will be, no doubt, the University’s focus on increasing support for students. To this end, the University has a goal of establishing 350 new University-wide student scholarships. Scholarship support is crucial to ensuring that more students can afford a UI education and that they are adequately prepared to succeed in today’s increasingly competitive and global economy—while also accumulating the least amount of postgraduation debt.
The University’s planned increase in faculty support will allow our professors more time and compensation for their teaching and research efforts, increasing their visibility and prestige and allowing them to grow professionally. The UI’s specific goal in this area is to create at least 100 new endowed faculty chairs and professorships. These distinguished positions—the highest honors a University can bestow upon its professors—will help to attract the best and brightest faculty to Iowa, ensuring that these fine teachers and researchers are rewarded for their devotion both to their field of study and to students’ learning.
When parents visit the Iowa campus, they’ll see firsthand all the exciting capital projects that are currently under way, many of which were made possible by a public-private funding partnership that combines state support with private gifts. New buildings and major renovations are being constructed for the medical campus, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Art and Art History, the Honors Program, the Belin-Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development in the College of Education, UI athletics, and the Writers’ Workshop, among other programs. Not only will these new buildings make Iowa look better to prospective students and faculty, they’ll provide the University with improved facilities and equipment for the reason we’re all here: the education of tomorrow’s leaders.
Again, the University is grateful to the parents who’ve contributed in all ways—tangible and intangible. Through Parent Times and other publications, parents will be apprised of the campaign’s success.
For more information, visit the University of Iowa Foundation’s web site at www.GoodBetterBestIowa.org or contact the foundation at (800) 648-6973 or uiowa-foundation@uiowa.org.
By The University of Iowa Foundation