Today @ Colorado State

Increase funds for scholarships & fellowships

Campaign for Colorado State

$500 million comprehensive campaign launched, first in university history

August 29, 2009

Colorado State University Saturday evening announced the launch of its first-ever comprehensive campaign in the 139-year history of the university. The Campaign for Colorado State University seeks to complete a $500 million fundraising effort in the next three years.

Help ensure access and competitiveness

The campaign focuses on ensuring student access to a world-class education through scholarships and fellowships, and providing funds to increase quality through enhanced facilities and investments in a variety of educational programs.

“The campaign will build a strong cornerstone of private support for Colorado State – part of a sustainable financial foundation that will serve our future alumni for generations to come,” said Dr. Tony Frank, president of Colorado State University.
 
“With this campaign, we’re asking all those who believe in CSU’s mission to help build a stable, sustainable future for Colorado’s state university. Together, we can ensure that our children and grandchildren have the same access to the finest education in the world that public education offered us.”

Halfway mark surpassed

The Campaign for Colorado State University has already surpassed the halfway mark with approximately $290 million toward the $500 million goal over the past four years during the campaign’s quiet phase. University officials announced the public launch of the campaign at CSU’s premier Denver alumni event, the Green and Gold Gala, held this year at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium. Proceeds from the gala benefit CSU students through the Metro Denver Scholarship Fund.

“CSU is not sitting idle. It is stepping up and doing its part to look for every available resource to ensure access,” said Joe Blake, chancellor of the Colorado State University System.

Increase funds for scholarships and fellowships

The fundraising campaign will help to significantly increase funds for scholarships and fellowships, including need-and merit-based scholarships, in addition to graduate scholarships and fellowships.

In addition to scholarships, other key areas of the campaign include endowed faculty positions and undergraduate services, which include study abroad, honors program, undergraduate internships and experiential learning and the School of Global Environmental Sustainability.

Core focus areas

In setting priorities for the Campaign for Colorado State University, Vice President of Advancement and Strategic Initiatives Joyce Berry collaborated with CSU’s academic units to determine the core focus areas. Those three areas include the following:

• Academic Excellence
• Research, Outreach Programs to Solve Universal Challenges
• New and Renovated Facilities for a 21st-Century University

“Philanthropy is a critical component of CSU’s future. In an era of declining state support, we especially need to bolster private support to remain financially secure and competitive,” Berry said. “Publicly launching The Campaign for Colorado State University will unify the campus and bring together the individual pieces of CSU to provide a complete picture of who we are and the many ways that we serve the public and make immediate impact in people’s lives and communities.”

Recent successes celebrated at Green and Gold Gala

At the public launch of the campaign during the Green and Gold Gala, the university also celebrated several recent successes, including the following:

• Colorado State was again recently named in U.S. News & World Report’s top tier of American universities. 
• Colorado State University's pioneering work in renewable energy and its excellence in infectious disease and biomedical research, which helped push research expenditures close to $312 million in 2008-2009 - among the highest levels of federal funding for universities nationwide.
• Colorado State receives one of the highest levels of federal research funding per faculty member of any university without a medical school in the country.
• In July, The Princeton Review ranked Colorado State among its “Best 371 Colleges” in the 2010 edition. The rankings are based on surveys of 122,000 students during the 2008-09 and/or previous two school years. The 80-question survey asks students about their school's academics, administration, campus life, student body, and themselves.
• This year, BusinessWeek magazine ranked Colorado State University's College of Business as the top business college in the state and one of the top programs in the country. Colorado State moved up to 67th on the list - 30th among all public schools listed in the 2009 BusinessWeek rankings. The magazine also ranked the marketing and business law programs in the College of Business at Colorado State University in the top 10 among programs at the nation's best business colleges around the country.
• In the June issue of Scientific American, Engineering Professor Bryan Willson - co-founder of Envirofit International and Solix Biofuels - joined President Barack Obama, Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the first "Scientific American 10" honor roll for innovations that benefit humanity.
•  U.S. News & World Report ranked the veterinary medicine program at Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences second in the nation among America's best graduate schools in its most current ranking in 2007. It is the only veterinary medical program in the Western states to be ranked among the top 10.
• Colorado State's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences leads all other schools of its kind in external research funding.
• CSU's Department of Occupational Therapy was ranked 8th in the nation in 2008 by U.S. News & World Report "America's Best Graduate Schools" rankings. The department has been ranked in the top 10 occupational therapy programs by the U.S. News & World Report survey for multiple years.
• Colorado State ranks 12th in the nation among colleges and universities in the number of alumni serving as Peace Corps volunteers, and at the top of the list of public universities in the number of Peace Corps volunteers per capita. Fifty-seven Colorado State alumni volunteered for the Peace Corps. Since the Peace Corps' inception in 1961, 1,466 Colorado State alumni have volunteered.

For more information about The Campaign for Colorado State University, visit www.campaign.colostate.edu.

Opening Doors. Changing Lives. Transforming the World.

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Contact: Brad Bohlander
E-mail: Brad.Bohlander@colostate.edu
Phone: (970) 491-1545