More than 250 Brown alums congregated in London's Victoria and Albert Museum Sept. 25 for the London kickoff of "Boldly Brown," the $1.4 billion Campaign for Academic Enrichment.
President Ruth Simmons expressed her enthusiasm regarding the campaign's success to all who attended.
"When we began to devise the Plan for Academic Enrichment and map out the scope of the campaign, I knew it would be an undertaking that could easily overwhelm a less committed, less motivated and less energetic community," Simmons said, according to the campaign's Web site. "But the accomplishments to date have far surpassed even my expectations."
Among those invited were Pakistan-born British citizen Sanaa Rahman '08, who introduced Simmons, former Brown Club UK president Nicole Gill '90 and current president Ed Giberti '54. Professor of Neuroscience John Donoghue '79 was also present among guests and gave a presentation prior to the celebration.
The central focus of the event was a presentation on the campaign that featured a virtual tour of the University's campus, which was followed by a cocktail party in the Silver Gallery, according to the campaign's Web site.
A small dinner party for approximately 70 people was held in the home of Timothy Forbes, a member of the Brown Corporation, the day after the presentation and party, according to Ronald Vanden Dorpel AM'71, senior vice president for University advancement. Simmons also conducted one-on-one visits with potential donors during the six days she was overseas, Vanden Dorpel said.
London is only one of the many destinations Simmons has traveled to over the course of the past year. Other sites have included the Republic of Korea in May 2006 and Spain in October 2005. Simmons will also be traveling to Beijing later this month and Mexico within the next year, according to Neil Steinberg '75, vice president of development and campaign director.
Brown's presence will also extend across the country through trips to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Seattle, Philadelphia, Cleveland and New York beginning in January 2007 and lasting throughout the spring semester.
"(Simmons') visits are not winding down at all," Steinberg said. "There are still four more years left to the campaign."
Overall, the campaign had reached $776 million of its $1.4 billion goal as of Sept. 30, and Vanden Dorpel expects to reach the $800 million mark by the campaign's first anniversary on Oct. 22.
"The campaign is doing very well," Vanden Dorpel said. "We are currently putting together a global strategy to make Brown an internationally recognized university, and we are constantly trying to reach out to alumni all over the world."
The campaign in perspective
The Campaign for Academic Enrichment is only one of many ongoing fundraising campaigns for higher education institutions worldwide.
According to an Oct. 12 article by Inside Higher Ed, an online higher education news source, the launch of "mega-campaigns" - or campaigns that surpass $1 billion - is a growing trend.
The two largest campaigns are the $4.3 billion campaign by Stanford University, which launched on Oct. 3, and the $4 billion campaign by Columbia University, which launched on Sept. 29.
The article attributes the rise in mega-campaigns to universities' desire to outdo their peer institutions. "Mega-campaigns encourage excellence at the places that can pull them off, but others fear an already enormous gap between wealthier and less wealthy institutions is about to grow," the article states.
That may be the case with Brown and its fellow Ivy League institutions.
On July 1, 1990, the endowments at the eight Ivy institutions varied from about $441 million at Brown to $4.7 billion at Harvard University, according to "What a Difference A Decade Makes: Growing Wealth Inequality Among Ivy League Institutions," a report by Ronald Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute.
The report also gives numbers for growth over the past decade. Brown had an endowment of $1.4 billion in 2000, marking an increase of 227 percent, while Harvard's endowment experienced a 300 percent increase and rose to $19.2 billion. The report credits the growth to the stock market's performance during the 1990s.
Even though the Campaign for Academic Enrichment has already met more than half of its intended goal, it has not managed to show superior results compared to other campaigns.
Launched on Sept. 30, Yale University's "Yale Tomorrow" campaign, for example, has already reached $1.3 billion in its first month - almost half of its $3 billion goal.
