University Update: Making history - the Oregon way

Interim President Coltrane shared the following message with faculty and staff by email:

Dear Colleagues,

The University of Oregon is embarking on an important and historic journey. As I shared with you late Friday evening, we have now entered the public phase of our fundraising campaign and announced our intentions to raise an unprecedented $2 billion dollars to advance the university's lofty aspirations.

I have called this campaign audacious for good reason. It is the largest fundraising goal ever set by an organization in the state of Oregon. But the amount is not all that is groundbreaking. The campaign also breaks the mold in the way we established our goals. We asked our schools and colleges what they need to advance our mission of academic and research excellence, and student access and success. And we received a long list of important needs and priorities. We also set about benchmarking ourselves against other universities like ourselves, top-tier public research universities. What we learned is that the combination of enrollment growth from past years, and less state funding has created great need for investment in our faculty and research enterprises. We also examined what our students need to afford college, and to thrive and succeed once they get here. Finally, we looked at our current campus, where you work, teach, and conduct research, so that we could set priorities to improve our facilities, infrastructure, and technology.

We created our campaign goals from the bottom up. Our fundraising will support all our strategic priorities and those we establish as we renew the academic plan in the coming months. These priorities break down into three areas:

Access

Excellence

  • Increase scholarships to attract the best and brightest Oregonians
  • Increase the number of Clark Honors College students by 50 percent
  • Invest in academic collaboration through the Clusters of Excellence faculty hiring initiative
  • Fund 150 new tenure-track faculty positions
  • Retain outstanding faculty, and build on our already robust research and teaching strengths

Experience

  • Expand undergraduate research and experiential learning opportunities
  • Create more opportunities for study abroad and international recruitment
  • Provide seed funding for innovation and new ideas
  • Fund upgrade of IT infrastructure and increased capacity to process “Big Data”
  • Build a College and Careers Building for the College of Arts and Science and Career Center
  • Renovate the Price Science Commons and Research Library, EMU, and Straub Hall
  • Renovate and expand Chapman Hall (home of the Clark Honors College)
  • Build Architecture and Allied Arts building
  • Expand facilities for athletics
  • Build a new Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art visitor pavilion

The start of our public campaign will mean different things for different members of our campus community. Those who connect our faithful and prospective donors with their passions will kick their efforts into overdrive. Others will notice few changes in their immediate day-to-day work, but should recognize that this campaign will be incredibly important to all of us. It will support our mission, further strengthen our programs and great faculty, and help us provide the benefits of higher education to more students.

I am extremely grateful to all of you, for making it possible for us to dream this big, and for your support as we go forward to make these dreams reality.

Sincerely,

Scott Coltrane
Interim President