Five years, $2 billion, one goal: building on Chicago's strengths
With food for thought and a celebratory dinner, on April 12 the University's Board of Trustees launched "The Chicago Initiative," the largest fund-raising effort in the University's history-and among the most ambitious campaigns in the history of higher education. In announcing the five-year, $2 billion capital campaign at a Bartlett Dining Commons event attended by 525 Chicago alumni and friends, Board of Trustees chair Edgar D. Jannotta noted that in a two-year "quiet" phase, early supporters had already committed $702 million to the effort-surpassing the $676.2 million raised during Chicago's last five-year capital campaign, completed in July 1996.

President Randel helps launch the Chicago Initiative.

The Bartlett dinner followed an afternoon series of symposia in which faculty members from across the University considered some of today's most pressing issues and persistent questions, while offering glimpses of how Chicago's researchers are responding. As President Don M. Randel noted in introducing the program, the symposia reflected Chicago's central enterprise and thus underscored the Initiative's aim, to "support what matters to this University most."

Focused on four priorities, the Initiative will raise fund to build on Chicago's traditional strengths, with the following monetary goals:

• $275 million for faculty positions and research, including endowments for more than 35 full professorships;
• $290 million to support undergraduate financial aid and graduate fellowships;
• $390 million to finance 11 facilities projects in the campus master plan, including the Interdivisional Research Building, a Graduate School of Business campus, and facilities for the creative and performing arts;
• $955 million to underscore resources to Chicago's programs in the natural sciences, medicine, and computation; and
• $90 million in annual giving to provide student scholarships and graduate fellowships; faculty research and teaching programs; and facilities.

The Initiative's quiet phase raised $152.6 million in gifts to Chicago's endowment, $291.1 million earmarked for current use, $97.6 million for facilities, and $160.9 million in gifts for purposes that have yet to be specified.

The result of a three-year, University-wide planning process, the Initiative is chaired by Jannotta, assisted by James S. Crown and Paula Wolff, AM'69, PhD'72, vice chairs of the Board of Trustees. Other members of the Trustee Campaign Steering Committee are Andrew M. Alper, AB'80, MBA'81; James S. Frank; Robert M. Halperin, PhB'47; Dennis J. Keller, MBA'68; Peter W. May, AB'64, MBA'65; Harvey B. Plotnick, AB'63; and Andrew M. Rosenfield, JD'78.
-M.R.Y.

For a full account of the April 12 launch and details on Chicago Initiative priorities, see Chicago: Campus of the Big Ideas. There is also an Initiative Web site: chicagoinitiative.uchicago.edu.

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