Transforming Lives Campaign Brochure 2017

The Campaign for Northeastern Illinois University

Transforming

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What happens when you turn on a light?

You see more clearly.

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You become aware of where you are and where you want to go.

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At Northeastern Illinois University, we believe that education is the light that illuminates opportunity.

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A light that shines for excellence and innovation.

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At Northeastern, we have dedicated ourselves to transformational opportunities for our students.

Wherever they are from.

Wherever they are going.

For generations to come.

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For our present and for our future, come along with us. We can transform our world together.

Starting right now.

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“It’s time to take our University to a new level, and a small step forward is simply not enough.

We too must transform.”

Richard J. Helldobler Interim President

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Message from the President Dear Friends, At Northeastern Illinois University, we transform the lives of our students every day. Here, they engage in exceptional learning in a supportive environment that welcomes diversity and fosters inclusion.

Wherever they are from, wherever they are going, Northeastern empowers them to succeed.

The need for transformational leadership is greater than ever – and so are its challenges. It’s time to take our University to a new level, and a small step forward is simply not enough. We too must transform.

We are achieving transformation in student success, academic excellence and innovation, urban leadership, and exemplary faculty and staff. Already, generous donors like you have contributed more than $6 million to the Transforming Lives campaign.

We believe you’ll agree that, of all life’s successes, the most satisfying is knowing you have transformed the life of another for the better, and for generations to come. We ask that you join us now to transform lives.

Gratefully, Transforming Lives: The Campaign for Northeastern Illinois University is our firstever University-wide fundraising campaign that brings our ambitious Strategic Plan to life. Begun in 2014, the campaign has responded to fiscal challenges, increasing needs and new opportunities with vision, vigor and common sense.

Richard J. Helldobler, Ph.D. Interim President

NEIU Foundation Board Officers

NEIU Foundation Board Members

John F. Roskopf, President Vice President, Risk Management, EIIA

Kenn Ashley Former President, Windcrest Advisory

Lawrence P. Frank, Ph.D., Vice President Provost Emeritus, Northeastern Illinois University Neal Fenwick, Treasurer Chief Financial Officer, ACCO Brands Mark Van Ausdal, Corporate Secretary Business Attorney

William Pollakov President and CEO, The Pollakov Financial Group, Inc.

Cathy Krawitz, C.F.A. Municipal Research, BMO Asset Management Corporation, BMO Global Asset Management

Thomas F. Power Retired President and CEO, Wisconsin Central Transportation Corp.

Jacqueline Krump, Ph.D. Professor Emerita, Northeastern Illinois University

Salme Harju Steinberg, Ph.D. President Emerita, Northeastern Illinois University

Marcellus H. Moore, Jr., Esq. Managing Partner, The Alliance Law Group, P.C.

Dirk Tussing Founder and Executive Director, Executive Learning Exchange

J. Todd Phillips Founder and CEO, Parson Partners

Rodrigo Garcia Head of Investments, Banking & Finance, Illinois State Treasury

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About

Transforming

Northeastern Illinois University

Northeastern has come a long way since 1867.

Every year since then, our Golden Eagle alumni have found success in virtually every discipline. They are business leaders, scientists, educators, physicians and political leaders, professional artists and musicians, scholars, community builders and innovators. They came because Northeastern offers something special.

For 150 years, Northeastern has delivered an excellent, affordable and engaging education.

It is nationally recognized for its diversity, low student debt and high quality education. It is fondly remembered for its community.

Now, we embark upon a bold next step.

And we cannot do it alone.

With you, our Golden Eagles family and friends, we celebrate our sesquicentennial anniversary with a pioneering statement of support: Transforming Lives: The Campaign for Northeastern Illinois University.

Our journey begins with a $10 million goal in order to position Northeastern for a future that is aspirational. Transforming Lives will assure that our students know they are supported every step of the way through scholarships and exceptional learning environments, and that our faculty are equipped intellectually and pragmatically as we prepare graduates for success.

With your help, we will inspire Golden Eagles everywhere to share in this vision and to ensure that vital scholarship opportunities and critical resources exist for a strong future.

For our next 150 years. neiu.edu/transform

Our Mission

Our Vision

Northeastern Illinois University, as a public comprehensive university with locations throughout Chicago, provides an exceptional environment for learning, teaching and scholarship. We prepare a diverse community of students for leadership and service in our region and in a dynamic multicultural world.

Northeastern Illinois University will be a leader among metropolitan universities, known for its dedication to its urban mission, for the quality of its programs, for the success of its graduates, and for the diversity of its learning environment.

Leveraging Our Assets for Transformation The University has a wealth of assets: diverse, ambitious students; a talented, dedicated faculty; rich, relevant programs in the arts, sciences, business and education; distinguished alumni; and convenient locations in a world-class metropolitan area.

Donor investments in the Transforming Lives campaign will leverage these assets to a whole new level.

Transforming Lives is a comprehensive campaign, emphasizing support for our students, faculty and learning environments so we can improve student recruitment and retention, expand needed services and raise our competitive profile.

With your support, we will be the role model for all American public universities in a 21st century global environment.

Campaign Initiatives Extraordinary Scholarship Support - $6 Million Scholarship support for deserving undergraduate and graduate students is vitally important to help them access an excellent education, regardless of need, and to keep debt low as they complete their degrees. Endowed scholarship support is of particular importance as it provides financial assistance in perpetuity.

Exceptional Learning Environments - $4 Million Thoughtfully developed Northeastern facilities foster achievement, enhance well-being, aid growth, encourage community spirit and support transformation. Amenities and technology-rich improvements to our learning environments will support research, scholarship and campus life for students, faculty and staff.

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Transforming Our Students Extraordinary Scholarship Support Ensuring the success and persistence of our students is at the heart of what we do.

Study Abroad and Research-Related Travel For many in our diverse community—especially low-income and first-generation students— we represent opportunity and the chance for a better life. Your generosity will help more conscientious Northeastern students pursue their academic journeys to become critical citizens of the world.

We will build Extraordinary Scholarship Support for students ready to transform their lives.

• Scholarships and Fellowships • Study Abroad and Research-Related Travel • Experiential Learning, Internships and Mentored Research

In today’s world, cultural literacy is more crucial than ever. Travel has always been broadening, providing new perspectives, informing dialogue and empowering students as change agents.

At Northeastern, we believe international travel to study is a distinctive asset – one that must not be limited to affluent students. Our diverse student population is already uniquely primed to participate in our global economy.

The NEIU Foundation Student Travel Award provides $10,000 in travel awards each year to students who are presenting their academic research at regional, national and international conferences. As Northeastern offers more undergraduates the opportunity to engage in research, support for research-related travel must also grow.

Experiential Learning, Internships and Mentored Research Scholarships and Fellowships Scholarship support will help students focus less on paying for college and more on rigorous academic and creative work.

More scholarship support will also help many students complete their degrees sooner, which will let us recruit and graduate more students in a shorter period of time. Efficient progress toward graduation benefits our students and our university – and our overall economy, too.

Internships and mentoring have always been powerful aids to student success and career path development. But students need financial support to take advantage of them.

Two popular Northeastern scholarships – the NEIU Alumni Association Internship Scholarship and the Doris Vrooman Mentorship Scholarship – serve as models to donors who want to bring these valuable opportunities to more Northeastern students.

In a world that profoundly needs them, Northeastern students have much to learn and much to offer. With your help, we will make it happen.

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“I want to take the time out to thank the donors because your investment in my future has provided me motivation to keep going.”​ Chaelecia Cooper M.A. '15 Inner City Studies

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NEIU Foundation scholarships and awards granted Fall 2016 to Spring 2017

301

students funded by our generous donors Fall 2015 to Spring 2016

72% $1,065 Average NEIU Foundation scholarship in Fall 2016

of our Fall 2016 student population received some form of financial aid

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Transforming Our Communities Exceptional Learning Environments Northeastern’s transformative power comes not only from people but from place. Within the walls of our five locations, we foster transformation through achievement, well-being, growth and community spirit.

Naming Opportunities for University Buildings and Spaces By supporting learning environments, you will provide resources across the University to help Northeastern maintain high-level, meaningful engagement for our students. Exceptional learning environments include programmatic resources that enhance learning and inspire students and faculty alike in the pursuit of growth and discovery.

We will create Exceptional Learning Environments that Northeastern deserves.

• Colleges, Departments and Programs • Naming Opportunities for University Buildings and Spaces • Endowed Professorship • Research Grants for Faculty

The naming opportunities for University buildings and spaces, and the modern technologies within them, will take Northeastern students to new levels of professional and personal growth within and beyond the classroom.

Donors have the opportunity to name specific rooms, laboratories, theatres and performance spaces, student recreation areas, and residence hall spaces and, in turn, will sustain those spaces, and the programming within them, for future generations.

Endowed Professorship We seek Northeastern’s first endowed professorship to ensure that we attract and sustain a world-class faculty member to enhance teaching, innovation and excellence for a college or area of work.

Research Grants Help Transform the Future

Endowed funds dedicated for Northeastern’s colleges, departments and programs allow these academic areas the flexibility and freedom to address needs and opportunities that arise throughout the academic year.

In the past two decades, Northeastern’s sponsored research and related programs have grown impressively: Our extramural research and externally funded program expenditures rose from $1 million in 1990 to a $17.4 million collaborative grant in 2015 with Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago to tackle cancer in Chicago’s underserved communities. But we can do more.

Through his lead gift to the campaign, one of the three funds Daniel Goodwin created was the Daniel L. Goodwin Dean’s Program Fund within the Goodwin College of Education to provide the dean with discretionary dollars that may be used where most needed.

Research informs and enriches classroom and laboratory instruction. It also supports the University’s capacity for service. Our projects move out into the community to address health, education, the environment and other pressing, realworld concerns.

Investing in Northeastern’s learning environments — making them extraordinary — ensures that many more generations of graduates are well-equipped to transform not only their own lives, but the communities in which they live and work.

Northeastern students and faculty make the most of handson experiences in the laboratory and in the field, and donor support ensures that these discoveries continue.

Support for Our Colleges, Departments and Programs

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“Northeastern Illinois University is a microcosm of what America has to be.

Northeastern holds the key to diversity and inclusion to change our world.”

Thomas J. White, B.A. ’81 Physical Education Distinguished Alumnus Award Winner 2016

Fall 2016 35% White 34% Hispanic

ethnicity

12% Unknown/Other 10% African American 9% Asian

16:1

student-to-faculty ratio for Fall 2016

100

countries of citizenship represented by our student body for Fall 2016

1st

Student Housing opened Fall 2016

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Message from the Honorary Co-Chairs Dear Friends of Northeastern, It has been three years of hard work to build momentum in our quiet phase and to have reached the point at which we have arrived — the public launch of Northeastern Illinois University’s $10 million, first-ever fundraising campaign. Now, Northeastern has less than two years — and $4 million — to go. As honorary chairs of this pioneering effort, we are delighted to greet you.

We have begun new traditions in the process, including Golden Eagle Welcome Day, in which new students are greeted by faculty and staff in ceremony and celebration, and NEIU Weekend, in which students, alumni, faculty, staff and the entire Golden Eagle family are invited to celebrate homecoming and to recognize the accomplishments of our remarkable alumni.

We have effectively doubled the charitable support the NEIU Foundation has provided to the University, from $615,000 in Fiscal Year 2014 to $1.3 million in Fiscal Year 2016. We have increased the average scholarship from $990 in Fiscal Year 2014 to $1,065 in Fiscal Year 2016, and we have increased the number of endowed scholarships and awards from 103 to 136. Yet, there is good work ahead, and we are asking for your help.

Honorary Chair Daniel L. Goodwin has made an historic commitment of $2.5 million, including the Goodwin Gift Challenge to our alumni and friends, which concludes in 2018, the final year of our campaign. His gifts are divided between campaign initiatives – outright scholarship support, a dean’s program fund for the Goodwin College of Education, and a Distinguished Lecture Series to bring well-respected individuals to present a range of perspectives to the University community.

We have watched Northeastern grow and develop over decades. We are so proud of the Golden Eagle family that has come together in advocacy, philanthropy, and in support of who we are as a university, and in understanding of what makes Northeastern so special.

The success of this inaugural campaign effort has broad and bold implications. It affirms that Northeastern has arrived.

Northeastern is ready, it is worthy, and the time is now. Your generosity will provide scholarship support to many deserving students and will provide faculty with the resources they need to create exceptional learning environments.

This campaign is a beginning as we enter our next 150 years. Let us work together to transform lives.

Sharon K. Hahs

Salme Harju Steinberg

Daniel L. Goodwin

President Emerita 2007-2016

President Emerita 1995-2007

B.A. 1966, Psychology and Education Chairman Emeritus, NEIU Board of Trustees 1996-2006

Northeastern is

ready.

Northeastern is

worthy.

And the time is

PRINTED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS • 3/17 • 1,000 • PO#

now.

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Office of Institutional Advancement Northeastern Illinois University 5500 North Saint Louis Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60625 (773) 442-4200

neiu.edu/transform