UNCA Raises $11.1 Million in First Comprehensive Campaign;
Surpasses Goal by $3.1 Million
UNC Asheville wrapped up its first comprehensive campaign Tuesday,
raising $11.1 million and exceeding its $8 million goal by 39 percent. The
final figure was announced Tuesday evening at a "thank you"
celebration for the community at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. The
celebration included an hour-long concert by Grammy-award winning
performer David Holt.
The four-year campaign, "UNC Asheville: Moving to First in Our
Class," raised more than $3 million for scholarships, as well as
funding for enhanced technology, service learning, and faculty and
creative initiatives.
"With the success of this campaign, UNC Asheville leads among
public liberal arts colleges, and that is where we belong -- in the lead,
setting the pace," said Chancellor James Mullen.
Donations came from many sources. UNCA received $2.4 million from
corporations and foundations, $2.3 million from community and national
friends, and $1.5 million from UNCA Foundation Board and UNCA Board of
Trustees. Statewide alumni campaigns in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida
and Texas, along with donations from other alumni, faculty and staff and
parents, yielded another $1.2 million. In addition, the UNCA Planned
Giving Office has secured $3.7 million in planned bequests.
The campaign donations will translate into many benefits for UNCA's
students.
The $3 million for direct and endowed scholarships includes 36 new
endowed scholarship funds established to support students majoring in
disciplines ranging from management and mass communication to theater and
music.
Among the gifts for campus technology enhancement was $100,000 grant
from the Bank of America which will provide "smart classrooms"
for Owen Hall, home to the Art and Management departments. The "smart
classrooms" will be equipped with computers with high-speed Internet
connection and superior sound systems, multimedia projection equipment and
VCRs, enabling professors and students to maximize the effectiveness of
the teaching-learning process. Another grant of $80,000 from Eaton
Corporation Foundation supports the UNCA-NCSU engineering-mechatronics
program with an endowed scholarship fund and state-of-the-art design
laboratory for students in engineering, physics, chemistry and other
sciences.
Gifts to faculty initiatives include funds to establish the Glaxo
Wellcome Endowed Professorship in Undergraduate Science Research, which
will increase collaborative research activities and cross-disciplinary
work. "The greatest impact from this endowment will be on student
learning, because it will offer students an opportunity to conduct
research under the mentorship of an outstanding scientist already engaged
in significant projects, an opportunity usually reserved for the graduate
level," said Bert Holmes, who holds UNCA's Philip Carson
Distinguished Professorship in the Sciences.
A $500,000 gift from the Adelaide Worth Daniels Foundation early in the
campaign was used to establish a center for service learning that
coordinates volunteer activities of students and faculty with teaching and
learning in academic classes. "Students work with established
nonprofit organizations such as Manna Food Bank, the public schools and
United Way agencies, and they find original ways to make a difference in
the community and their own education," said Margaret Downes, UNCA
literature professor and director of the Key Center for Service-Learning.
The campaign, a joint effort of UNCA's Foundation Board and the Board
of Trustees, was co-chaired by Robert Peterson, UNCA Class of 1957, a UNCA
Foundation director and retired Sky City Stores CEO, and Pamela Mills
Turner, area civic leader and former chair of UNCA's Board of Trustees.
"It was wonderful to see the wholehearted support of both boards for
this endeavor," said Turner, who now sits on the Foundation Board.
"We couldn't have done it without the many volunteers, including
friends, alumni and community leaders who were solidly behind this effort
and the outstanding work by the UNCA staff," said Peterson.
UNCA's Campaign Executive Committee included Dorel A. Abbott, Luther E.
Barnhardt Jr., Frank Giordano, Maralee Gollberg, Alice Green, Fred Groce
Jr., Bruce Larson, Walter McConnell, Michael J. McCue, Duane McKibbin, Sue
H. McClinton, Charles McKnight, Norma Messer, Linda Nelms, Sally Pearlman,
Eugene L. Presley, Jesse G. Ray Jr., Michael S. Tanner, Harriette Winner
and Julienne Winner.
Media Contacts:
- Beverly Modlin, UNCA Vice Chancellor for University Relations,
828/251-6525
- Merianne Epstein, UNCA Public Information Director, 828/251-6676
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