for student support — financial
aid,
scholarships,
fellowships,
internships and travel funding.
The University already directs
considerable funds toward stu-
dent support. During the 2013-
2014 academic year alone, the
University awarded more than
$900 million in financial aid to
32,133 students. So far, $450 mil-
lion has been raised for scholar-
ships alone during the Victors for
Michigan campaign.
A number of factors make it
difficult to predict exactly where
that money will go. For one, most
donors specify exactly what spe-
cific school, program or fund they
want their money going toward.
Further, many donations are paid
over a period of time, meaning the
University might not receive the
full amount for several years.
For their part, the students
have been involved in Victors for
Michigan since the beginning.
During the campaign’s original
planning,
a
student
commit-
tee joined the deans and other
administrators to help craft the
campaign’s three goals.
Like the fundraising campaign,
the Central Student Government
has also worked to provide student
support during the past year. For-
mer CSG President Bobby Dishell,
a Public Policy senior, attempted
to fund a LEAD scholarship —
a merit-based scholarship for
minority students — through the
Alumni Association in the fall.
The effort ultimately fell through
because of Proposal 2 restrictions
in Michigan, which prevent the
school from giving scholarships
based on race.
Still, recently elected CSG
President Cooper Charlton, an
LSA junior, said he wants to work
closely with administrators to
pursue other creative avenues to
increase student support. Charl-
ton said he plans to learn more
about
fundraising
and
work
closely with administration on
this issue.
“Are we creatively thinking
of different ways to find scholar-
ships, to decrease tuition? Yes;
kind of one of those longer con-
versations I will be having over
the summer to really, really nail
down some target ideas,” Charl-
ton said.
In addition to student support,
another goal of the campaign is
to attract donations for faculty
research. To that end, deans of
each school have been market-
ing their research projects to
potential donors as part of the
campaign. These projects are
generating interest even among
non-alumni donors — a group
that, in recent years, has grown
larger in number than the alumni
donor base.
Deborah
Loewenberg
Ball,
dean of the School of Education,
said she wants funding for the
school’s work in improving K-12
education in the state and else-
where. Programs like the Center
for Education, Design, Elevation
& Research have attracted the
support of non-alumni, Ball said,
and people are excited to see the
results the School of Education
can produce.
“It’s been a moment, I think, of
opportunity for people working
in education that there are people
interested in giving money,” she
said.
James Woolliscroft, dean of the
Medical School, and Dave Mun-
son, dean of Engineering, said
because faculty of both schools
work so closely on research, nei-
ther of them mind which of the
two schools donors give to since
it’s all going to the same place.
This notion resulted in a fund-
raising partnership between the
College of Engineering and the
Medical School
“Maybe it’s in an account
that’s controlled by engineering,
maybe it’s in an account that’s
controlled by medicine, maybe it’s
in an account that’s controlled by
the vice president for research,”
Munson said. “We don’t really
care as long as it in some way ben-
efits our faculty and our students
and I think it’s a somewhat new
way of thinking about this.”
“Dave and I did a little presen-
tation to literally a room full of
interested attendees and donors.
One of the stories told was about
the tracheal splint,” Woolliscroft
said, referring to the 3-D printed
device used to save a baby’s life
two summers ago. “It’s that sort
of thing that’s very real, very pow-
erful and can’t be done by either
school alone.”
The Medical School has also
worked closely with UMHS in its
fundraising efforts. Tom Baird,
who serves as the interim asso-
ciate vice president for medical
development and alumni rela-
tions, said the hospital is a major
attraction for non-alumni donors.
He said a large portion of the
donor base comes from former
patients hoping to give back to the
hospital after treatment.
“You have grateful patients
where they had a family member,
or friend, or some type of rela-
tionship where the health system
helped them and they just feel so
strongly about the care that they
received that they want to make a
gift to support that area,” he said.
The Victors for Michigan cam-
paign relies on a broad network
of volunteers and donors. Volun-
teers are charged with hosting
fundraising events, participating
in campaign meetings and advo-
cating for the University’s initia-
tives, among other tasks.
University alum Mary Petro-
vich wrote in an e-mail that she
has participated in a wide range
of volunteer activities.
“I have been involved in possi-
bly the deepest and most diverse
sets of activities of any volunteer
in terms of my time and money,”
she wrote. “I currently serve as a
member of the President’s Advi-
sory Council, but that is the tip of
the iceberg.”
Petrovich has donated funds to
support the construction of a new
mechanical engineering building
and an engineering scholarship
and recruiting program, as well
as the softball and men’s basket-
ball locker rooms. She plans to
support projects to improve gas-
troenterology care in the coming
year.
“Michigan means so much
more to me as the springboard
for my success given the under-
privileged background that I
came from and the confidence
I derived from my four years of
success at Michigan,” she wrote.
“My life has been enriched by the
many lessons that I have learned
in the classroom and on the play-
ing field. Those experiences have
been priceless and formidable
building blocks to my career suc-
cess.”
University
alums
Laura
McTaggart and Tom Nolan, cam-
paign volunteers who each earned
graduate degrees from other uni-
versities, wrote in an e-mail their
undergraduate experience at the
University motivated them to
support the Victors for Michigan
campaign.
“Michigan plays a much bigger
role in our philanthropy because
for us, the undergraduate experi-
ence was so important and life-
changing,” they wrote. “We are
strong believers in public edu-
cation and the mission of great
public schools. In addition, our
graduate school experiences did
not include watching football and
singing a rousing fight song every
Saturday surrounded by over
100,000 like-minded souls. That’s
the community we want to stay a
part of.”
McTaggart and Nolan cited the
need to improve the affordability
of higher education as their moti-
vation for getting involved with
the campaign.
“We want to help students
afford
college,
period,”
they
wrote. “We both had help getting
through school and this is our
way of paying that back.”
right of dissent, but we also rec-
ognize the right of speakers to
be heard.”
“I certainly respect the right
of the group to speak up and tell
us their opinion about some-
thing important,” Schlissel said
in an interview with The Michi-
gan Daily after the November
meeting. “I’m disappointed that
they chose to disrupt the meet-
ing, but we were able to conduct
the business of the University in
this separate venue as needed.”
Toward the end of the Thurs-
day’s regents meeting, both
Schlissel
and
a
number
of
regents expressed their frustra-
tion with the protest.
Regent Mark Bernstein (D),
who previously served as the
chair of the Michigan Civil
Rights Commission and helped
established the Michigan Civil
Rights Academy, said the protest
did a disservice to the cause of
diversity on campus.
“On a personal level, I am
deeply frustrated and disap-
pointed in some of our students
and other people, not because it
was moderately disruptive, but
because they are so misguided
and damaging an important
cause,” he said.
Black undergraduate enroll-
ment at the University has
hovered around 4 percent in
recent years. Aside from BAMN,
other groups have lobbied for
increased diversity on campus.
In January 2014, members of
the University’s Black Student
Union called on the University to
address undergraduate minority
enrollment, among other issues.
In addition to campus activism,
the BSU has opted to work with
administrators
to
implement
changes, whereas BAMN has
largely focused on protest. In
November, E. Royster Harper,
vice president for student life,
said BAMN had not attempted
to schedule a meeting with Uni-
versity officials.
Regent Andrea Fischer New-
man (R) said she, too, was disap-
pointed in the protest and added
that
BAMN’s
demonstration
turned the narrative away from
important issues.
“I don’t think rushing the
table and storming the meeting
helps make the point,” she said
in an interview after the meet-
ing.
Schlissel echoed this sen-
timent, calling for construc-
tive dialogue and plugging the
launch of a University-wide
diversity plan. Schlissel has said
he plans to announce details in
the fall.
“I hope we continue to work
together to construct some civil
discourse
and
constructive
action,” he said. “The Univer-
sity’s commitment to diversity
does not waver.”
3-News
ANDREW COHEN/Daily
Members of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) protest for increased minority enrollment outside of the Board of
Regents meeting at the Michigan Union on Thursday.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, April 17, 2015 — 3
PROTEST
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TARGET
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ferent factors correlate with
donations, the analysis com-
pares donations with each of
the 20 college’s U.S. News and
World Report rankings, holis-
tic sports ranking and student
body.
One area lacking variance
was academic prestige; almost
all schools on this list are
renowned for their scholastic
and research excellence. U.S.
News and World Report rank-
ing of each school was measured
to assess the school’s academic
quality. These rankings account
for
undergraduate
academic
reputation, student retention,
faculty quality and other fea-
tures.
Being a top-20 fundraiser
puts the University among the
company of schools with higher
academic rankings. The median
U.S. News ranking for a top 20
donor school in 2013 was 14,
comparable to Cornell or North-
western. The University is 29th
— the 15th lowest among the top
20 donors.
Most schools with lower aca-
demic rankings were in the bot-
tom half of the top 20 list. Six of
the top 10 donor schools were
also in the top 10 of U.S. News
rankings — such as Harvard
University and the University of
Pennsylvania — while only two
of the bottom 10 schools were in
U.S. News’ top 10.
Finally, notable differences
exist among public and private
colleges. Eight public schools
were on the top 20 list, and all
were in the bottom 10. Their U.S.
News and World Report median
score was lower, and their ath-
letic score tended to be higher.
The median public school dona-
tion in 2013 amounted to $338
million as opposed to $490 mil-
lion for private schools.
Among public schools, the
University’s donation amount in
2013 was 4 percent higher than
the median public school, but 28
percent lower than the median
private school amount.
That could signify that the
University, despite its lowered
state appropriations, still has
more in common with pub-
lic rather than private schools
when it comes to funding.
As state funds have experi-
enced declines over the past
couple decades, the Univer-
sity has had to reevaluate the
role of state and private money.
Still, Jerry May, vice president
for development, said while it’s
“conceivable that for some rea-
son (the University) decides to
‘go private’ ” somewhere down
the line, there is no point in
exploring that route right now.
He said the idea was discussed
decades ago, but is not a topic
today.
May
explained
that
any
money coming from a source
like donations can be used to
help fund operating costs like
scholarships, which frees up
state funding for other areas.
The state of Michigan currently
only provides 16 percent of the
University’s general fund bud-
get, which May described as an
unrestricted endowment.
Malcolm said the University
would need an additional $700
million added to the current
$9.7 billion endowment to off-
set the loss of state funding if it
were to indeed go private.
May said the reason private
money has become so important
is because of the University’s
increased efforts to provide
scholarships. He said schol-
arships should help slow the
increases in tuition rates, and
that the University has made a
dent in that effort over the past
few years.
“We put our first amount of
money on in-state tuition for
in-state students. We now can
guarantee that we will meet
the need of an in-state student,”
May
said.
“We’re
probably
$12,000 short per-student to be
able to meet the need of an out-
of-state student.”
Still, May said, given the sta-
tus of state appropriations and
the financial goals of the Uni-
versity, the development office
will be full steam ahead for the
foreseeable future.
“We will always need build-
ings, we will always need to
replace buildings,” May said.
“We will always have new pro-
gram ideas and technology will
change us so that we’re teaching
you something different.”
“When you endow a scholar-
ship at U of M, the money you
donate goes into the invest-
ment fund at the University,
and the interest made off of that
gets donated each year,” Appel
said. “The first year will be just
one student, but our plan long-
term is to keep donating. We’ll
have a major cause each year
for the concert, but then as we
keep growing and making more
money, we can keep dumping
money into the fellowship each
year, so it will keep growing.”
However, regardless of fam-
ily wealth, many students report
finding themselves without extra
money to donate.
First-year
Medical
student
Molly Laux, who heads outreach
and public relations for the Stu-
dent-Run Free Clinic, said the
donations are even more mean-
ingful when students with limit-
ed funds still choose to give back.
“Even when they are small
donations, we feel really privi-
leged to receive them,” she said.
“I think that because of that,
it makes us work very hard to
make sure that student voices are
heard in things that we do, and
for that we always try to make
sure that we can keep as many
volunteer positions open as pos-
sible, get as many students in.
We bring students in as inter-
preters sometimes. We under-
stand that when students do give
us that extra money that they
maybe saved for a few days or a
few weeks, that we really do our
best to make sure that we can do
something in return.”
Laux added that by donating
their time as well, students have
an enhanced chance to see the
importance of their contributions.
“When the students are able
to come in and kind of see where
their money goes, they can see
our patients and see how grate-
ful they are for the services that
we provide,” Lauz said. Not
only does that make them feel
proud of the donation that they
originally gave, but I think that
gives them a greater incentive to
donate more when they can.”
Most donations to the Stu-
dent-Run Free Clinic go toward
renting out the space for their
medical center; the rest funds
equipment,
medications
and
other supplies.
The
organization
raised
$13,528 on Giving Blueday. Laux
said she attributed much of
that to the work of the Office of
Development, noting the ability
to work both with Walsh’s team
and another specifically for med-
ical students.
“They’ve been such a great
help,” Laux said. “(They) helped
me figure out what the best ways
of strategizing the posts, and she
helped me find personal stories
we could use, and helped me
find the most effective means
of transmitting information in
time, drawing attention to our
e-mails. They were completely
fantastic.”
Business senior Kimberly Cui,
finance and fundraising team
leader for Alternative Spring
Break, also noted the advantag-
es of having access to Office of
Development resources.
“(Walsh) and her team are def-
initely really helpful,” she said.
“They’re really open to meet up
with even student organizations
about fundraising ideas and kind
of the best way to fundraise.
We’re definitely hoping to work
more with them in the future.”
MUSIC Matters also works
closely with the Office of Devel-
opment.
“Our model is more teaching
students how to fundraise as a
whole,” Appel said. “We do a lot
of fundraising at the University,
we reach out to corporate spon-
sors, we have a lot of students
learning how to make a pitch
book, learning how to present an
idea to a corporation, things like
that.”
In the future, Walsh said her
team is interested in continu-
ing to work with organizations
through initiatives like Giving
Blueday. In this year’s version of
the annual student survey, two
questions were added specifi-
cally on Giving Blueday with the
aim of improving involvement
next year.
In addition, University rep-
resentatives met with student
organizations to garner feedback
after the event.
“What we learned from our
sessions with student orgs was
they thought the energy of the
day was really great,” Walsh
said. “They felt that the training
and the resources that we pro-
vided was really great, and they
loved the challenges. Some of the
things they felt we could improve
on are, for instance, making sure
that our training is available
online, because they come and
attend and they want to share it
with members of their organiza-
tions.”
Cui also noted the importance
of students developing a habit of
donating early on.
“For us, it’s almost more
important that students are giv-
ing,” Cui said. “We really value
their donation, because when
you start while you’re in college,
you really care about the issue,
you want to be active about that
issue in the community. So for
us, starting young, it shows that
you’re passionate about the issue,
you’re empowered to support
programs that you believe in,
and then we also believe that if
you start now, the likelihood that
you’ll continue to be involved in
the future is a lot higher.”
Cui said the majority of ASB
funds go toward the vehicles that
are used on the trip, but the funds
are also used to cover housing for
volunteers as well as gas.
Appel said student donations
not only play an important role
in University development, but
also provide chances for students
to contribute to the University
community.
“As a whole, there’s a really
great opportunity for students
too,” he said. “It doesn’t matter
how much they donate, but being
able to donate and give to a cause,
I think it’s important for the Uni-
versity and it just leaves people
with a good feeling.”
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