IMPACT, Fall 2018

IMPACT TH E M AGA ZI N E O F I G N ITE : TH E CA M PA I G N FO R U C F

Spurred by private support, a new day dawns for the Knights

CHARGING AHEAD

18 FALL

Inside Fall 2018 | Issue 2, Volume 2

BIG YEAR UCF’s world-renowned Marine Turtle Research Group was among the fundraising priorities that benefitted from more than $81 million in giving during Fiscal Year 2018 — the best so far of the IGNITE Campaign. Jim ’81 and Julia Rosengren designated a portion of their $6.6 million commitment to support the program, which has collected data on turtle nesting along Central Florida’s beaches since 1982, assembling an extensive — and invaluable — dataset.

Night after night during the summer nesting season, students and faculty brave the bugs and heat, using red lights (white is prohibited because it confuses the turtles) to find and tag nesting females, mark nest locations and collect samples, then grab a few hours of sleep before returning at dawn to count hatched and unhatched eggs and maybe help a last few hatchlings to the water.

Of the three turtle species that nest here, the endangered leatherback is the least commonly seen — with fewer than 50 nests observed in a typical year — and the biggest, growing to seven feet long and 1,500 pounds.

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“FOR SOME STUDENTS, AN UNEXPECTED $200 MEDICAL BILL CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GRADUATING AND GIVING UP.” — Maribeth Ehasz, Vice President for Student Development and Enrollment Services

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FLASH POINTS Downtown campus progress / Bill Gates on UCF / $400M milestone / 41 years of consecutive giving / Michael Dieffenbach ’18

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TEN MINUTES WITH… Limbitless Solutions President Albert Manero ’12, ’14MS, ’16PhD

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PERSPECTIVE Vice President for Student Development and Enrollment Services Maribeth Ehasz on giving beyond scholarships

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T H E B I G S TAG E With the right level of philanthropic support, says Director of Athletics Danny White, the Knights can and should be competitive with the nation’s premier athletics programs.

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COUNTDOWN IGNITE Campaign at a glance / campaign by the numbers / The David W. Boone’75 Human Trafficking Endowment / record year for the UCF Fund COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY ZACK THOMAS

GUSTAVO STAHELIN | PERMIT MTP-186

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IMPACT is published three times annually by UCF Advancement for alumni, friends and partners of the university who have made philanthropic commitments to IGNITE: The Campaign for UCF. Please direct correspondence and address changes to foundation@ucf.edu or Impact Editor, 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 250, Orlando, FL 32826.

VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT AND CEO, UCF FOUNDATION, INC. Michael J. Morsberger, CFRE

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR COMMUNICATIONS Patrick Crowley

EDITOR Zack Thomas

ART DIRECTOR John Sizing jspublicationdesign.com

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The 15-story UnionWest at Creative Village will house some 600 UCF and Valencia College students in downtown Orlando.

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25 BAKER BARRIOS ARCHITECTS AND CANNONDESIGN

UCF Graduate Programs Ranked in Top 100

Downtown Rising

A new mixed-use building will house UCF and Valencia students.

UnionWest at Creative Village, a new 15-story, mixed-use building under construction in downtown Orlando, will be home to UCF and Valencia College students living and learning at the shared downtown campus that opens in fall 2019. In addition to more than 600 student beds on the upper floors, the building will house Valencia College’s Walt Disney School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality on the lower floors, along with shared student services, including financial aid, registration, advising and career services.

Although the building, UnionWest at Creative Village, is privately owned and Prime naming developed by Ustler Development and DEVEN, the developers have selected opportunities at a UCF to manage the residential student housing. wide range of giving “The opportunity to live, study and work downtown is a real game changer levels remain available for our students,” says Thad Seymour, UCF’s vice president for partnerships and throughout the chief innovation officer. “With the addition of the new academic buildings and Dr. Phillips Academic student housing, the campus will help accelerate the creation of an innovation Commons. Please district in downtown Orlando.” contact Paul Baker at 407.882.1220 or Work is also progressing on the new campus’s first academic building, the UCF Dr. Phillips Academic Commons, which is slated to open in July 2019 paul.baker@ucf.edu for faculty move-in. Classes for an expected 7,700 students at the downtown to learn more. campus start in August 2019.

Twenty-five UCF programs were ranked among the top 100 of their kind by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools of 2019 — three more than in last year’s edition and seven more than in 2017.

UCF’s top-ranked program this year is Emergency Management and Homeland Security, No. 6 in the nation. The ranking category is new this year for the magazine.

The next highest ranked programs were Counselor of Education at No. 10 and Nonprofit Management and Optics & Photonics, both at No. 12.

Other programs in the top 50 were: Public Management and Leadership (23), Criminology (26), Public Budgeting and Finance (29), Public Policy Analysis (34), Health Administration (38), Industrial Engineering (39), Public Administration (44) and Materials Engineering (50).

Several other engineering and computer science programs, Nursing, and a variety of programs in the new College of Health Professions and Sciences were ranked in the top 100.

More than 800 institutions are reviewed based on peer and expert opinions about the quality of programs and on statistical data that measures the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students.

“OUR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES NEED TO BE BIGGER AND BETTER. UCF HAS BEEN A PIONEER IN SHOWING HOW. I HOPE OTHER COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES WILL LEARN FROM ITS SUCCESS.” — PHILANTHROPIST AND MICROSOFT FOUNDER BILL GATES in his blog, “Gates Notes,” after visiting campus last fall.

Gates was particularly impressed with UCF’s commitment to online learning as a means of serving an expanding student population while keeping academic standards up and tuition down.

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IGNITE Passes $400M UCF’s campaign enters final phase on a roll.

Thanks to the generosity of nearly 100,000 UCF alumni, friends and partners since 2011, total giving to the IGNITE Campaign surpassed $400 million in early July. The target date for completion of the $500 million campaign is June 2019. With more than $81 million in commitments, Fiscal Year 2018, which ended June 30, was the best since IGNITE began.

A surge in private support for UCF Athletics played an important role in that success, as did the John C. Hitt Initiative for Faculty Excellence, helping inspire $7 million in commitments to fund five new endowed faculty positions.

A $6.6 million commitment from Jim ’81 and Julia Rosengren was also key, along with generous giving by corporate and nonprofit partners like Siemens, FAIRWINDS Credit Union, Walt Disney World Resort, the Helios Education Foundation, Dr. Phillips Charities and others. Increases in cash donations to the UCF Fund and planned gift commitments also made an impact.

To reach the $500 million goal next summer, an even bigger year is needed — roughly $100 million in giving over just 12 months. That represents a 25 percent increase over last year, but campaign leaders are confident it’s a reachable goal. “Achieving the $400 million milestone puts us right where we want to be headed into the final year of this historic effort,” says campaign chair Rick Walsh ’77, ’83MS, HC’15. “These numbers are proof that the momentum we feel is real.”

GIFTS AND COMMITMENTS BY FISCAL YEAR ($ millions)

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With more than $81 million in gifts and commitments, Fiscal Year 2018 was the best yet for the IGNITE Campaign.

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56

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62

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41 Number of consecutive years in which Roger Pynn ’73 and his wife Shelley Kiefer Pynn ’74 have given to UCF, the most by any donors.

The pair are among roughly 5,500 current members of the new Black & Gold Loyalty Society, which recognizes alumni and friends who give to UCF in two or more consecutive years, regardless of amount.

Those 5,500 members have contributed a total of nearly $80 million to advance UCF and its students, including almost $16 million just in the last year.

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Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Campaign total also includes $23 million in previous giving to campaign priorities.

Oxford-bound It seems fitting that Michael Dieffenbach ’18 is an expert juggler, able to keep five balls in the air at a time. The National Merit Scholar and recent Burnett Honors College graduate has had a busy college career — helping develop cancer medications as a research assistant and presenting his work at several conferences; inspiring elementary school students to pursue STEM careers through UCF’s STEM ambassadors program; spending two years in Brazil doing mission work; and translating for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking patients at a local medical clinic.

Now, thanks to a prestigious Frost Scholarship, Dieffenbach is about to have another ball in the air: studying pharmacology at the University of Oxford in England, with all tuition and living expenses paid for the year.

Although the scholarship is given by Oxford, UCF donors have helped Dieffenbach get there. “If not for the Office of Prestigious Awards at UCF, I would never have heard about the scholarship,” he says. “They were fantastic, always available to give advice.” Housed in the Burnett Honors College, the office prepares students across the university for the nationally-prestigious awards process, using private support to help fund conference attendance, research, internships and study abroad.

After Oxford, Dieffenbach hopes to work at the National Institutes of Health or pursue a doctorate focusing on cancer biology or drug design.

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“IF NOT FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS AT UCF, I WOULD NEVER HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE SCHOLARSHIP. THEY WERE FANTASTIC, ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO GIVE ADVICE.”

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10 MINUTES WITH...

Albert Manero

Why did you decide to focus your efforts on kids’ prosthetics?

Partly because kids have had very limited access to them. Insurance companies have resisted providing them because kids outgrow them so quickly. And the devices have been quite expensive previously, so only a few families could afford them. Then, even for kids who do get them, they have often struggled to find affinity with their prosthetics. The rejection rate is much higher than in adults.

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President, Limbitless Solutions

our years after a group of UCF engineering students calling themselves Limbitless Solutions first fitted Alex Pring, a 6-year old from Groveland, with a bionic arm they had designed and made with the help of a 3D printer for less than $300, the team — now a nonprofit with its own lab on the UCF campus — is ramping up for the first clinical trials of their low-cost arms.

Along the way, the arms — meticulously sculpted and painted specially for their young recipients — have been featured in Time magazine, on the BBC and CNN, and in a wide variety of other media.

With the promise of a $1 million estate gift from donor Anne Smallwood along Why do you place so much with her invaluable guidance — she spent her career in the emphasis on the visual design of the arms? pharmaceutical industry and has extensive experience What we’ve learned from kids navigating the labyrinth of regulations and approvals along the way is that the — Limbitless is positioned to dramatically extend expression component of the “BY USING its reach. Market clearance from the Food and is just as important as TALENTED STUDENT arm Drug Administration would mean the arms could its functionality. Kids want be made available to thousands of children, not INTERNS, WE’RE ABLE to be able to use them, but they also want them dozens, for little or no cost to their families.

TO BRING DOWN to express who they are.

In the Limbitless Lab, founder Albert Manero COSTS FOR FAMILIES They want to change ’12, ’14MS ’16PhD pointed to a wall recognizing the conversation from THAT NEED ARMS. people looking at their more donors to the organization. “Philanthropy,” he organic arm as a defect or said, “has powered the development of these devices, something that’s missing to and it’s the key to being able to provide them to more something positive and exciting, and more children around the country and the world.” an augmentation.

’’

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Help Limbitless Help Kids Since the beginning, private support has helped Limbitless deliver bionic arms to children in need. Now, the team’s priority is funding a year-long clinical trial for 20 children in partnership with Oregon Health Sciences University. The trial is expected to cost about $10,000 per child, including the arm itself, a travel stipend for visits to OHSU and occupational therapy during the trial. To learn more or make a gift, visit 3Dhope.com.

How is the Gen 3 arm different from earlier iterations?

The new version allows for individual finger dexterity and has five proficiency levels. Kids practice by playing video games controlled by the same kind of sensors they use to control the arm. When they reach new skill levels in the game, new kinds of gestures are unlocked in the arm.

This new version also allows for more expression. The artistic “sleeves” are interchangeable with one hand, so kids can change the theme of their arm whenever they want.

How much does it cost you to make a Gen 3 arm?

The hardware cost — not including time or manufacturing — is just under $1,000 per device. Using 3D printing allows us to minimize costs as well as create and design and iterate faster. We’re also able to scale up just the parts that need to grow with the child instead of replacing an entire arm.

As a nonprofit organization based in a university, we’re able to take more risks on things that may not generate profit than a company with shareholders or investors can.

By using talented student interns

NOTES OF GRATITUDE In this space, we feature excerpts from thank-you letters the foundation receives from students whose lives have been changed by donors like you. This one came from Olivia Strain, an aspiring high school math teacher who was awarded the Crouse Secondary Mathematics and Science Scholarship last year.

for much of what we do, we’re able to bring down costs for families that need arms and at the same time empower those young engineers and artists to have a tangible impact on their communities.

What is the best-case outcome of the clinical trial?

We believe that we’ll see that the kids in the study are able to use the arms effectively for everyday tasks and that their overall quality of life improves. Then we’ll submit the data we capture to the Food and Drug Administration as part of our application for full market clearance. At that point, if the FDA approves, we would be able to begin mass manufacturing the arms, and insurance companies would be able to cover them. That would mean many, many more children in need would have access to arms.

What’s next for Limbitless?

Our next project is called Project Xavier. It’s a wheelchair that you can control just using your facial muscles, which tend to be the last muscles to atrophy or become paralyzed in people with degenerative muscular disorders like ALS. We’re moving to have that device in a clinical trial soon.

PERSPECTIVE

Crucial Assistance

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT DONATING TO HELP STUDENTS afford a college education, you probably think in terms of funding scholarships to help cover their tuition. Of course, that kind of support is absolutely critical; if students can’t pay tuition, helping them in other ways doesn’t get them any closer to earning a degree.

What many donors may not realize, though, is that scholarships are just one of many ways to help students succeed. In fact, students encounter a surprising variety of needs beyond tuition assistance — some financial and some not. That’s especially true at an institution like UCF, where we serve an extraordinarily diverse HOW TO HELP population of students, most of whom share little To learn more about in common with the stereotypical college student. helping students Nearly half are members of underrepresented in need, contact groups. About one-quarter are the first in their famiJulie Benson at lies to attend college. Many come from low-income 407.882.1220 or julie. households, work part- or full-time, or have children. benson@ucf.edu.

Some are homeless or struggle with food insecurity.

For example, students sometimes face emergency expenses that scholarships can’t help with. They might be the result of a medical problem, a natural disaster, or even a broken down car. For students who are financially secure, such expenses might be no more than an inconvenience. But for others, an unexpected $200 medical bill can mean the difference between graduating and giving up. At UCF, we have several programs — largely funded by private donations — that provide crucial short-term assistance to students in need. Supporting these programs is among the most powerful ways to help our students.

Gifts to support various kinds of tutoring, academic support and mentoring also meaningfully improve student success, as do gifts to programs and initiatives that promote student health and wellbeing.

Affording tuition remains the first and highest hurdle for most of our students. But clearing that hurdle doesn’t guarantee graduation.

There are more hurdles to come, and supporting the programs that boost students over them can create life-changing impacts.

— Maribeth Ehasz is UCF’s vice president for student development and enrollment services, a position in which she leads the efforts of some 700 professional staff and more than 2,200 student employees dedicated to ensuring the success and wellness of every UCF student from enrollment through graduation and beyond. She has been at UCF since 1994.

I wo rk 30 or mo re hou rs pe r we ek as a lea d ins tru cto r at M at hn as ium an d ha ve ha d th e pri vile ge of for min g life -c ha ng ing re lat ion sh ips wit h ma ny of my st ud en ts , bu t th e fin an cia l pre ss ure s as my hu sb an d loo ks for wo rk an d I at te nd sc hoo l ha ve be en bu ild ing . Th is sc hol ar sh ip wil l he lp me fun d my ed uc at ion so th at I ca n con tri bu te to th e ma th em at ics ed uc at ion of my st ud en ts for ye ar s an d ye ar s to com e. M at h is my pa ss ion , an d I kn ow I am me an t to he lp my st ud en ts lea rn to lov e ma th .

Th an k you for he lpin g me ac hie ve my dr ea m.

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BIG ST The

TAGE UCF has the market, the recruiting base and the scale to consistently compete for championships at the highest level of college sports, says Director of Athletics Danny White, but converting on those opportunities will require stronger philanthropic support. Two record fundraising years in a row are a good start, but much remains to be done.

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EVERY YEAR, THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of Collegiate Directors of Athletics gives an award called the Learfield Directors’ Cup to the American colleges and universities that are most successful overall in intercollegiate athletics based on their performance in a wide variety of sports.

The list of schools that have made the top 10 in the Directors’ Cup standings more than once in the last five years is a short one: Stanford (the perennial No. 1), Ohio State, Texas, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Penn State, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Texas A&M, Notre Dame. A few others — Georgia, Duke, Florida State, Kentucky — appear once each in the last five years. It’s rarefied air.

Even the top 50 is composed almost exclusively of flagship state universities interspersed with a few big, well-heeled privates like Northwestern and Syracuse, nearly all of

them from the so-called “Power Five” conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Pac-12, and the Southeastern Conference. Last year, just six schools from outside the Power Five made the top 50, led by Princeton at No. 31.

So when Vice President and Director of Athletics Danny White says with quiet assurance that a consistent top-50 Directors’ Cup ranking is precisely where he aims to take UCF you’d be excused for raising an eyebrow.

After all, notwithstanding last year’s undefeated football season and Peach Bowl victory, UCF doesn’t exactly fit the mold. The university is 100 years younger, give or take a few decades, than most of last year’s top 50, a member of the American Athletic Conference and has fluctuated between No. 67 and No. 149 in the Directors’ Cup standings over the past six years.

HOW YOU CAN HELP The easiest way to support UCF Athletics is by visiting ucffoundation.org/knightsathletics to make an online gift supporting the John and Martha Hitt Athletic Scholarship Fund or the sport of your choice.

To discuss other giving choices — establishing an endowed scholarship, helping fund new facilities, taking advantage of a naming opportunity or investing in an excellence fund for football,

men’s basketball or women’s basketball — please contact UCF Championship Resources at 407.823.2086 or championshipresources@ athletics.ucf.edu.

Also keep in mind that

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giving to athletics and to other university priorities are not mutually exclusive. Many donors choose to split their gifts, directing a portion to athletics and a portion to one more or other areas of interest at UCF.

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Breaking the Mold

Converting on Opportunities

Before you raise that eyebrow too far, though, remember UCF’s long record of defying expectations. Take, for example, the way the university has managed to actually improve academic quality while opening the doors ever wider, contradicting conventional wisdom and prompting the Washington Post to call it part of “the vanguard of an insurgency that aims to demolish the popular belief that exclusivity is a virtue in higher education;” U.S. News & World Report to name it one of the nation’s most innovative universities; and philanthropist Bill Gates to praise UCF for “proving that a university can have it all: a large, diverse student population, high standards and affordable tuition.”

It might not be what was supposed to happen, but there it is.

You could say the same thing about UCF’s rocket-fueled growth from a commuter school at the edge of town into one of the nation’s largest universities in less than 50 years. And, for that matter, about last year’s seemingly improbable bowl win over perennial football powerhouse Auburn.

So, setting aside for a moment the many

The sheer size of UCF Athletics’ potential market figures big in the formula. “We’re one of the fastest growing universities in America, located in the fastest growing city in America and the second-biggest city in the country without an NFL team,” White says. “We have a quarter-million alumni, 100,000 of them here in Central Florida, and we add 15,000 more every year. We have the best recruiting base in the country in just about every sport we have. Other programs may have a hundred-year head start on us, but I think there are very few that have the raw ingredients for success at the level that we do.”

Developing a recruiting advantage through the Kenneth G. Dixon Athletics Village — an already-inprogress cluster of unique and innovative facilities for competition as well as training, academic services, professional development and health and wellbeing for student-athletes — is also part of the plan. So is creating an unparalleled game-day experience for fans through marquee entertainment, premium seating options like UCF’s first-in-collegefootball field cabanas, and more. And so is investing significantly in outside-the-box marketing efforts to increase engagement with the Knights both within the alumni community and throughout Central Florida as “Orlando’s Hometown Team.”

But converting on those opportunities and ideas requires something else: money. The fact is that all high-caliber athletics programs depend heavily on private dollars from individual donors and corporate sponsors. And until UCF is at least in the same fundraising ballpark as schools that are nationally competitive year in and year out, consistently challenging them on the court or the field will be difficult.

Private dollars are needed to pay for the outreach required to engage that huge potential audience, to improve and build those nextgeneration facilities, to create that unmatched game-day experience, to recruit and retain top coaches and other personnel and of course to fund student-athlete scholarships. “Donors gave us $13.4 million last year,” White says. “We couldn’t be more grateful. But the places that compete consistently for top-25 rankings in every sport are raising at least $30 million. That’s where we need to be.”

The good news is that Knight Nation is big enough to make that happen very quickly if it’s motivated to do so. The better news is that things have already started changing, with enthusiasm for the Knights (and private support along with it) increasing dramatically over the last two years. Last year’s $13.4 million cash total was not only a UCF record but also a nearly 25 percent improvement over the $10.9 million raised the year before — itself a record at the time. In terms of total commitments — cash gifts plus pledges, estate gifts and other kinds of gifts — the 2016–17 year was UCF’s best ever at $17.5 million, followed by 2017–18 with $16.6 million. Season ticket sales have also exploded, increasing by about 10,000 tickets over the last two years, and the roughly 3,500 new premium

reasons UCF shouldn’t be able to transform its athletics department relatively quickly into one of the nation’s premier programs, how exactly does White think it can be done? Well, the same way UCF has achieved those other remarkable successes — not by trying to fit the mold but rather by breaking it and doing something new.

“I think UCF represents the future of higher education as an institution,” White says, “and I think our athletics department represents the future of college sports in the same way.”

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“Other programs may have a hundred-year head start on us, but I think there are very few that have the raw ingredients for success at the level that we do.”

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WINNING OFF THE FIELD While there’s always room for improvement, the Knights are already champions academically. For four years running, UCF student-athletes have graduated at the highest rate of all 112 public institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the NCAA. Last year, UCF’s Graduation Success Rate (GSR) was 94 percent, seven points above the national average.

Among all FBS schools, UCF trailed only Notre Dame, Stanford, Northwestern, Duke, Vanderbilt and Boston College — all private institutions.

Last year, more than 60 percent of UCF’s roughly 450 student-athletes recorded a 3.0 or higher GPA, with 40 of them earning a 4.0. Close to half of them, 215, were named to the American Athletic Conference’s All-Academic Team in the 2016–17 academic year. The Knights’ average GPA last spring was 3.3, marking the 21st consecutive semester with a 3.0 or higher.

That’s no accident. UCF Athletics is very intentional in prioritizing student-athletes academic success — as well as their leadership skills, career readiness and overall health and wellbeing. “We’re in the education business too,” says Director of Athletics Danny White. “The academic culture in our athletics department is second to none.”

Since 2016, the Wayne Dench Center for StudentAthlete Leadership has served as the Knights’ home for personal, professional and academic development. The facility was funded through a $4 million commitment from the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust and a $1 million commitment from the Williams Family Foundation.

“We’ve had a lot of very generous donors step up, and a lot of those donors are helping to inspire giving from others. But what I believe is that we’ll look back at this time as the time when things were really just getting started.” seats in Spectrum Stadium are expected to sell out completely this fall.

Aiming Higher Is this a point of inflection for UCF and its Knights?

White thinks so. “We’ve grown very fast the last few years,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of very generous donors step up, and a lot of those donors are helping to inspire giving from others. We’ve had some success on the field and on the court, which has created a lot of excitement. But what I believe is that we’ll look back at this time as the time when things were really just getting started.”

Again, though, that’s largely up to UCF alumni and the Central Florida community, White says.

He recently changed the name of UCF Athletics’ fundraising arm from the Golden Knights Club to Championship Resources, reflecting a new way of thinking in the department, a mission to secure the level of philanthropic support that’s needed to consistently compete for championships, not just to keep the Knights in the game. And he’d like to see the UCF and Central Florida

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communities shift their expectations similarly.

“What we need our alumni and friends to do is raise their sights,” he says. “Invest in the Knights and the university at the level you’re capable of.

Don’t contribute $5,000 a year if you’re capable of contributing $100,000. If everybody does that, with our scale, then we’re going to be extremely successful, and I think our university, our alumni and our community are going to be very proud of how their athletics department represents them on the national stage.”

That kind representation has real value beyond the pride that comes with a win for the home team.

“Intercollegiate athletics, when it’s run correctly, with integrity, is the most powerful marketing tool a college or university can have. It’s the only proven way to build a national brand for a public research institution in this country. Whether you care about sports or not, athletics is the front porch of the institution. There might be a lot of great things going on in the house, but athletics is what most people see first. And that gives us a very valuable opportunity to introduce them to the rest of UCF.” I

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LEADING THE CHARGE Director of Athletics Danny White has made a big impact since joining UCF less than three years ago, in December 2015. Almost immediately, he started hiring head coaches — Scott Frost for football, Johnny Dawkins for men’s basketball, Katie-AbrahamsonHenderson for women’s basketball and Greg Lovelady for baseball, all of whom took their teams to the postseason in their first seasons.

In White’s first full academic

year, 2016–17, a school-record 11 programs out of 16 made postseason appearances and four collected conference championship trophies. Last year, in addition to the football team’s success, the rowing and women’s soccer teams scored conference championships, and 11 programs went to the postseason again.

Off the field, White has led a similar turnaround in fundraising. In addition to two

record fundraising years in a row, UCF Championship Resources has seen a wave of high-level commitments including more than $5 million from Ken Dixon ’75 to establish the Kenneth G. Dixon Athletics Village, $2 million from Tony and Sonia Nicholson for the Athletics Village, $1.5 million from John Euliano to renovate the newly renamed John Euliano Park, $1.275 million from Jim ’81 and Julia Rosengren for improvements

to Spectrum Stadium and other priorities, $1 million from Bob and Carol Garvy to establish the Garvy Center for StudentAthlete Nutrition, and a major commitment from the Roth family to help fund construction of the Roth Athletics Center.

White walks the walk too.

He and his wife, Shawn, recently made a $125,000 commitment of their own to the John and Martha Hitt Athletic Scholarship Fund.

“Invest in the Knights and the university at the level you’re capable of. If everybody does that, with our scale, then we’re going to be extremely successful, and I think our university, our alumni and our community are going to be very proud of how their athletics department represents them on the national stage.” igniteucf.org

COUNTDOWN

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IGNITE AT A GLANCE IGNITE: The Campaign for UCF is an intense, focused and strategic effort to channel the collective resources of our alumni, friends, partners, faculty and staff toward the common goal of infusing the university with $500 million in mission-critical private support by 2019.

Goal $500 million Projected completion June 30, 2019 Leadership IGNITE is powered by volunteers — the UCF Alumni and UCF Foundation boards as well as thousands more at many different levels — whose efforts are steered by a dedicated and dynamic Campaign Cabinet: Richard J. Walsh ’77, ’83MS, HC’14 Chair, IGNITE: The Campaign for UCF Nelson J. Marchioli ’72, Chair, UCF Foundation Board of Directors Phyllis A. Klock HC’14 Lawrence J. Chastang ’80 Michael J. Grindstaff ’78 Allen R. Weiss ’76, Honorary Member Michael J. Morsberger, Ex Officio Vice President for Advancement and CEO, UCF Foundation, Inc.

Priorities: Student Success By expanding access through alternative pathways, by making a UCF education affordable to all deserving students through scholarships and fellowships, and by expanding programs that enrich the student experience and prepare students for success after graduation, we will continually strive to offer the best education to one of the nation’s largest and most diverse student bodies.

Academic Excellence By attracting and retaining top faculty members, by supporting the work of interdisciplinary faculty clusters, by helping fund critical research, and by providing the most advanced learning facilities and technologies, we will further elevate UCF’s academic environment and spur exciting and relevant discoveries.

Growth and Opportunity By leveraging existing strengths, seeking strategic partnerships and pursuing new opportunities — including expanding UCF’s presence in downtown Orlando, promoting interdisciplinary endeavors to develop innovative health care solutions, contributing to a healthier environment, and expanding global initiatives — we will strive to lift lives and livelihoods across Central Florida and beyond.

IGNITE CAMPAIGN PROGRESS (July 1, 2011 – August 22, 2018)

Friends

Corporations

24%

33%

%

Alumni

Remaining

$95,206,538 19%

Foundations

$ 500

DONOR CLASSIFICATION

19%

Progress

$404,793,462 81%

MILLION

Government

10%

Organizations

7%

7%

Buildings and Equipment

28%

Current Use

%

54%

86 months 90%

96

DESIGNATED USE

Endowment

Elapsed

Remaining

10 months 10%

MONTHS

17%

Undetermined

1%

igniteucf.org

COUNTDOWN

13

I M PACT

David Boone (center) with students at UCF in September 2016

HIS BEAUTIFULLY SIMPLE PHILOSOPHY — “DO GOOD THINGS, AND BE KIND TO OTHERS” — IS CENTRAL TO HIS LEGACY. GIFT SPOTLIGHT

The David W. Boone ’75 Human Trafficking Endowment THE DAY AFTER THE PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING, David Boone ’75 — who passed away in March — called the UCF RESTORES PTSD clinic and said, “I’m sending you a check. Use it for whatever you need to help the survivors.”

It wasn’t at all out of character for Boone, an Atlantabased attorney who was not only a tireless and passionate crusader against human trafficking and other forms of contemporary slavery but also deeply committed to making the world a better place in whatever way presented itself.

His beautifully simple philosophy — “Do good things, and be kind to others” — is central to his legacy.

In addition to supporting RESTORES, Boone partnered two years ago with UCF’s Burnett Honors College and Global Perspectives Office to launch a community-focused working group on human trafficking, expanding communication

with organizations and individuals in the region who deal with human trafficking.

Eventually, that effort led to the creation of UCF’s Center for the Study of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery, which Boone hoped would build awareness of human trafficking, inform and conduct solutions-oriented research, alert potential victims to the dangers posed by traffickers and assist survivors.

Through his estate, Boone has established an endowment that will help fund the center’s work in perpetuity.

Boone — the son of UCF’s first assistant registrar, Sam Boone — also gave his time to the university as an advocate and a volunteer, serving for four years on the UCF Foundation Board of Directors.

SUPPORT Gifts to the UCF Human Trafficking Awareness Program in memory of David Boone may be made online at ucffoundation.org/boone-legacy.

RECORD YEAR FOR THE UCF FUND BODES WELL FOR FUTURE GIVING

F

iscal year 2018 was a historic one for the UCF Fund, the university’s annual giving fund, which is composed of cash gifts up to $25,000. A record-setting 9,595 UCF alumni combined to contribute $4.9 million, while overall giving to the fund totaled $13.4 million, a 27-percent increase.

Notably, the number of young alumni — those 32 and younger —

making gifts increased by 55 percent over the previous year. Their collective giving increased 43 percent. The number of parent donors increased 22 percent, and, thanks to increased engagement and stewardship activities during National Student Engagement and Philanthropy Month in February, the number of student donors doubled, with a

69-percent increase in giving.

Such increases in participation by students and young alumni are promising signs for the future of UCF, which has long depended more heavily on private support from non-alumni friends and corporate partners and less on alumni giving than many of its peer institutions.

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The number of current students donating to the UCF Fund doubled from fiscal year 2017 to 2018.

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The Next 50 Years

Fifty years ago this fall, 1,948 pioneering students began their college careers on the seven-building campus of a brand-new university offering 55 different degree programs on the eastern outskirts of Orlando. Built on scrubland and pasture along the unpaved Alafaya Trail, Florida Technological University wasn’t much to look at in 1968, but its leaders and supporters had big dreams.

Today, Alafaya Trail is six lanes wide, Florida Technological University has become the University of Central Florida, and some 67,000 highachieving and diverse students choose from 216 degrees offered at the 172-building, 1,415-acre main campus and several other locations across the region. But our Knights still share the pioneering spirit of their 1968

counterparts, and our university still has those big dreams.

As we embark on the next 50 years — and enter the final phase of the historic IGNITE Campaign — UCF is changing the face of healthcare at Lake Nona and developing new partnerships at UCF Downtown. We’re protecting and preserving Florida’s coast through our National Center for Integrated Coastal Research and observing space in new ways at the Arecibo Observatory.

Generous support from donors like you has driven growth and innovation at UCF since the beginning. But it has never played a more important role than it does today.

Thank you.