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October 2003

Campaign means more than just dollars to UNF

Pierre N. Allaire

Although the Access to Excellence capital campaign has successfully been concluded having raised more than $100 million, relatively little attention has been focused on what the campaign is making possible at UNF.

Pierre Allaire, vice president for Institutional Advancement, said the best way of judging the effectiveness of a campaign is to look at where the University was five years ago, before the start of the effort.

For example, the value of the endowment grew from $18 million to $40 million. The growth is from gifts and from appreciation through sound management of the portfolio of stocks and bonds, Allaire noted.

As a result of the growth, the UNF Foundation generated about $1.6 million last year to distribute for scholarships, endowed faculty positions and several programs.

The biggest recipient of endowment funds was the scholarship category. In 1997, UNF had roughly $1 million in need-based scholarship endowments. Today, it exceeds $15 million. Merit-based scholarships totaled $100,000 then and surpassed the $6.5 million endowment level as of June.

The faculty also have benefited. The number of endowed faculty positions (professorships) went from six to 27.

"This enables us to attract and retain more renowned faculty on our staff and from throughout the United States, which in turn enhances the quality of the educational experience for our students," he said.

"The University is better now than it was six years ago because of the generosity of our alumni and friends," he added.