Kickoff Dinner Held For $500 Million Bold Vision: The Campaign For The University At Albany

Kickoff dinner held for $500 million Bold Vision: The Campaign for the University at Albany. University President Karen Hitchcock and President of the University at Albany Foundation Board George Hearst III announced the new campaign, the largest in SUNY history. Major goals of the campaign are endowed professorships, raising the University's current $13.4 million endowment by $51.3 million, the Life Sciences Research Initiative with a $20 million goal, $25 million for a new Business Education Center. The largest gifts to date are IBM's donation of $100 million in funds and equipment for the Center for Excellence in Nanoelectronics, and a $100 million gift to the University from International SEMATECH. Two estate endowed professorships were announced at the event, one, the Nicholaou Excelsior Professorship in Hellenic Studies donated by Mary P. Nicholaou, masters '61, and the second an Excelsior Professorship for medical research donated by Professor Emeritus Pauline M. Vaillancourt and Murielle T. Vaillancourt. Professor Paul Leonard and his wife Kristine also announced their intentions to establish an endowment to support community college graduates entering the University. The silent phase of the campaign began July 1, 1998, and to date $272 million has been committed. Major corporate gifts have already been pledged by IBM, GE, Pfizer, foundations like Hartford, Hearst, and Avon, and individual donations by Thomas and Connie D'Ambra, Marty Silverman, and the late Carla Delray.

Subjects

Gifts

Source Details

Mary Fiess, "UAlbany Announces $500 Million Fund-raising Campaign Goal," UAlbany Update, May 8, 2003, pp. 1, 7