By Jacquie Powers
Cornell has completed its five-year capital campaign with a record-setting $1.507 billion that exceeded its goal of $1.25 billion, President Hunter Rawlings announced Fri day, Jan. 26.
Cornell's $1.5 billion is the most raised in any university campaign and already has helped offset a significant reduction in government support for higher education. Fully 27 percent of the 130-year-old Ivy League institution's $1.750 billion endowment is attributable to gifts raised during the campaign that was announced in 1990. That translates to a 91 percent increase in endowed faculty positions; a 99 percent increase in endowment per student; and a 114 percent increase in the number of endowed student-aid funds.
And, 78 percent of total contributions already had been received in cash by the end of December.
"This record-setting generosity is proof that Cornell's alumni and friends can rise to very great challenges and meet them with spectacular success," Rawlings said. "One Cornell student grateful for a scholarship that was given during this campaign said, 'No one ever really makes it entirely on his own.' That is the foremost lesson of this campaign. Cornellians everywhere participated in an effort to create the future for Cornell."
Nearly $205 million committed to student financial aid have helped preserve Cornell's need-blind admissions policy and thereby ensured continued access to the state's land -grant university, Rawlings said in his announcement at Cornell's Board of Trustees meeting held at the Cornell Medical College in New York City.
In addition to student financial aid, the campaign's four other main goals included support of faculty; support for academic programs; funds to upgrade facilities; and support for library needs. The campaign raised $146 million for faculty support; $589 million to support academic programs; $129 million for facilities; and $59 million for the library.
Cornell raised its record $1.507 billion with the momentum of more than 96,000 individual gifts totaling $1.06 billion. The campaign, which raised a record $85.3 million in its final month of December, harnessed the grass-roots fund-raising power of an unprecedented army of 2,300 volunteers.
"This was a campaign for both Main Street and Wall Street," said Harold Tanner, Cornell trustee and campaign co-chair. "One of the great strengths of the Cornell Cam paign was that like a giant jigsaw puzzle, it was made up of thousands of pieces. It didn't matter what piece, or how
many pieces any one person put into place; every piece was vital in completing the picture of success."
Inge T. Reichenbach, campaign director and Cornell's acting vice president for pub lic affairs, thanked members of the Cornell community, including faculty and staff, for their help as well as their contributions in the campaign.
"We owe much of our success in this campaign to the whole Cornell community, including our faculty, staff and students. Everyone worked hard to help provide sup port for the future of our unique institution, and I thank you."
Cornell's four state-supported colleges, which contribute substantially to its land -grant missions of service and outreach to the state's population, exceeded their goals. At a time when publicly supported higher education institutions are faced with recurrent reductions in their appropriations from government at all levels, these funds have helped the colleges maintain the high quality of their academic programs and their unique research and outreach missions.
With some campaign gifts yet to be designated, preliminary figures show the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences raised $138.2 million, or 146 percent of its goal; the College of Human Ecology raised $34.2 mil lion, or 201 percent of its goal; the School of Industrial and Labor Rela tions raised $22.7 million, or 111 percent of its goal; while the College of Veteri nary Medicine raised $46.4 million, or 124 percent of its goal.
Cornell was founded firmly on the principles of democracy and diversity, and its
doors from its establishment in 1865 were open to the poor as well as the more fortunate. To maintain those principles, one of the main goals of the campaign -- and one of the most successful -- was to raise funds for
student financial aid. Cornell donors resoundingly endorsed those principles with gifts totaling almost $205 million for financial aid.
Since 1976, Cornell has operated a "need-blind" admis sions policy in which students are accepted regardless of their ability to pay for their education and are provided with fi nancial aid to assist them in meeting the costs of their educa tion. While expensive, the policy has helped promote diversity at the university. Thirty-seven percent of Cornell's students receive financial aid grants from the university at a cost of $45 million.
The campaign raised $100.8 million for undergraduate financial aid, with the bulk of that, more than $77.8 million, going to support more than 1,400 named scholarship funds. The other $23 million was donated for a unique fellowship program, the Cornell Tradition, that recognizes and rewards extraordinary commitment to community service and the work ethic and allows students to reduce their aid debt.
Cornell senior Alpha Balde of Brooklyn, N.Y., the recipient of a scholarship given by Ellen Gussman Adelson, talked about what the schol arship meant to him.
"Uncertainties had been the most frequent and painful visitors to my life. The uncertainty of my mother's health, the uncertainty of a steady income, the uncertainty of food, the uncertainty of a job, the uncertainty of survival. The un certainty of me ... When we don't take it upon ourselves to ensure that everyone deserves a right to certainty, we have lapsed into a lesser humanity."
The campaign was initiated in 1990 by former President Frank H.T. Rhodes.
Of its successful conclusion, Rhodes said, "Cornellians everywhere have risen to the challenge we set before them five years ago, and through determination, hard work and extraordinary generosity they have surpassed, by a wide margin, the original campaign goal. All of us can take great pride in the success of the Cornell Campaign and in the foundation for excellence it has put in place."
Rawlings summarized the outcome of the campaign by looking toward the future: "These generous gifts, for which we are deeply grateful, will aid us in creating our future, which encompasses the full realization of Cornell's intellectual community and its commitment to public service."