University fund-raising campaign hits target - early

Dr. Dean Befus, Dr. Paul Armstrong, Gerry McDole and Dr. Lorne Tyrell

The skeptics said it couldn't be done, but the U of A's first campus-wide fundraising team proved them wrong as the campaign reached its $144.65 target this month, 20 months ahead of schedule. The total is now $147 million.

But before celebrating too loudly, both President Rod Fraser and Dr. Terry Flannigan, acting associate vice-president, external affairs, say there's still much work to do before August, 2000.

"We will continue to go on attempting to raise money at the same pace, if not increased pace, to fund the priorities that haven't thus far been funded," says Fraser. In a donor-driven campaign, he explains, there are always gifts earmarked for items not on the A-list, but which are nonetheless crucial to the success of the institution. The campaign goal represents only a small portion of the university's overall needs.

One recent contribution that helped push the campaign beyond its goal was a $300,000 "shot in the arm" for asthma research from AstraPharma, one of Canada's major pharmaceutical companies. The donation will be used to conduct research into the causes and possible treatments of asthma, and is part of a larger commitment to support the Astra Chair in asthma research. It follows a $100,000 gift from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research to determine the causes of asthma in Alberta school children, and about $200,000 from the American National Institute of Health for research on gene therapy in airway passages.

Sun Microsystems Canada also helped the campaign surpass its goal with $130,000 in Web service and hardware to provide on-line access to libraries across Alberta and to other object-base collection resources on the Internet. The project aims to "foster increased interest in cultural and natural history."

Some of the resources at the Sun SITE location include books, works of art, zoological specimens, spatial data, an Ethiopian volute (scroll) and a Guatemalan huipile. A virtual museum will give both the academic community and the general public unprecedented access to many of the University of Alberta's collections - a total of 17 million artifacts, specimens and works of art. The site is found at: www.sunsite.ualberta.ca

Many such donations have made the university campaign "the fourth largest that's ever been held in Canada," says Flannigan. "If it continues to go with this momentum, it's conceivable we could be the third largest (following the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia, but ahead of McGill)."

Besides continuing to raise money for scholarships and bursaries, Flannigan says the expansion of computing science is one area where private sector dollars are needed "more than ever," because of a shortfall in government funding. The Timms Centre for the Arts has not yet attracted the donations expected, and there are still several research chairs requiring support, including the Lemieux Chair in carbohydrate chemistry and chairs in petroleum and economic geology.

Looking back at the highlights of the campaign, Flannigan cites the launch, kicked off in downtown Edmonton with $70 million. "We did it properly, and showcased the major donors," says Flannigan. He is also proud of "the fact we've been banging away at putting scholarships and bursaries in place. That's the largest part of our campaign goal, and the one we've been addressing."

The $12.9 million gift from Telus, and a number of anonymous "transforming" donations, including $5 million for the Construction Research Institute, were some of the milestone contributions.

Flannigan says the campaign's success has been partly due to the hard work of the three co-chairs: the Rt. Honourable Don Mazankowski, Catherine Roozen (vice-president, investments, Cathton Holdings Ltd.), and Brian MacNeill (president and CEO, IPL Energy Inc.).

He also links the success to changing perceptions of the university in the private sector. "I think we're breaking down the ivory tower syndrome," he says. "People realize students are going to pay a larger percentage of the cost of education, and the government is going to pay their share but no more. So the third leg on the table is the private sector, and they're starting to pick up the ball."

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