CHAPTER FIVE
In addition, a strategic communication plan that allows the university to tailor unique messages with discreet audiences in a timely and effective medium will be a high priority. The expertise of our faculty in this regard is a valuable asset that should be employed for effective marketing and positioning with the community. Such efforts may entail the need for a new office that focuses solely on university marketing.
Fundraising Three major fundraising campaigns have been undertaken in the past 20 years, together yielding more than $300 million in current gifts and future resources. These campaigns have helped solidify the university’s mission and core values, even as they changed the lives of students and faculty by enhancing the quality of the academic program, creating new teaching and learning opportunities and renewing capital assets. Gifts to the university’s endowment have led to the creation of three endowed chairs and two endowed professorships that bring public recognition to the university and its programs as well as provide salary support, travel, research stipends and programming funds for faculty members. Endowed chairs include the Benson Family Chair in Business and Economic History, the Jolita Hylland Benson Chair in Elementary Education, and the Kurt Mayer Chair in Holocaust Studies. In addition, we have two endowed professorships, one in Lutheran Studies, and the SvareToven Professorship in Norwegian and Scandinavian Studies. Enhancing the endowment for financial support for students has been critical to
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ensuring access to college for all, regardless of their economic standing. It also has enabled the university to attract a diverse group of highly qualified students, and to enrich their educational experiences through scholarships, student-faculty research grants, and study-abroad stipends. PLU’s endowment has grown from $8 million in the early 1990s to more than $75 million today. Deferred gifts and pledges received during three fundraising campaigns totaled over $100 million and have helped set the stage for a future endowment of nearly $180 million. These gifts, along with the annual fund, enable the university to provide scholarships and recruit and retain the best students, to provide faculty support for teaching and research, and to provide enhancements to the university’s overall infrastructure. A university with a strong commitment to the liberal arts must provide high-caliber facilities to support its academic and co-curricular programs. Architecturally distinctive and environmentally sensitive facilities, complete with appropriate equipment and technology, inspire students and faculty and enhance the academic vitality of the university. Over the past 20 years, PLU has enhanced its capital assets including completion of the Mary Baker Russell Music Center, South Hall (a new residence hall), and the Morken Center for Learning and Technology providing a new home for business, math and computer science. Xavier Hall, the home of the social sciences, has been completely revitalized. The University Center and residence halls have been remodeled or renovated. The Martin J. Neeb Center has been constructed providing a new home for KPLU. The renovation of Eastvold Hall is now underway, transforming it by