University Times

Pitt has topped the $750 million mark in its $1 billion capital campaign.

The fundraising campaign, launched July 1, 1997, and expanded from its original $500 million goal in June 2002, runs until June 30, 2007. The three-quarter billion dollar mark represents funds raised as of Dec. 31, 2004. That is the largest amount of money raised by any fundraising effort in western Pennsylvania history, according to Pitt officials.

Chancellor Mark Nordenberg announced the news to the applause of Pitt’s Board of Trustees Feb. 25. “The total is something worthy of applause,” Nordenberg said. “But the campaign is not about the dollar goal. It’s about all the wonderful things we will be able to do with it,” including improving facilities and programs and contributing to the economic health of the region, he said.

Although the campaign is progressing, all is not rosy, the chancellor acknowledged. “We’re doing quite well [attracting funding] on the private side, but falling short on the public side,” he said. “And we’re seeing difficulties at all levels of government.”

President Bush’s proposed budget recommends cutbacks in the growth rate of federal support for research, Nordenberg noted, which inevitably would cause Pitt’s share of the research pie to decrease.

Also targeted for elimination under Bush’s proposal is the Perkins loan program that this year provided low-interest loans of $5.5 million to 3,000 Pitt students, Nordenberg said.

“The commonwealth budget proposed by the governor can be described from the public higher education perspective as mildly encouraging, puzzling and deeply troubling all at once,” Nordenberg continued. “It’s mildly encouraging in that it proposes a modest 2 percent increase in general appropriations that support the educational programs at the commonwealth’s state-related universities,” which would mark the second straight year of some increase “after several years of cuts and mid-year freezes,” he noted.

“We are grateful for that. However, even with the proposed increase we would remain about $4.5 million in actual dollars below our appropriations for fiscal year 2002, and $12 million below when adjustments for inflation are made,” Nordenberg said.

The governor’s proposal is puzzling in its plans to federalize aspects of programs in the health sciences, he said. “Specifically, a part of the proposal calls for a large slice of the limited funds now allocated for the support of the medical school, our dental medicine clinic, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and the Center for Public Health Practice to be replaced by federal Medicaid funds.”

Such a shift at the very least would delay the release of the funding pending the federal and state approval process, he said.

“Even more troubling, as a general matter, is the fact that the federal government seems clearly to be cutting its own programs of this type, making our programs even more vulnerable to future reductions,” Nordenberg maintained.

Also troubling is the governor’s intention to revamp the rules that govern the distribution of tobacco settlement dollars that likely would reduce dollars earmarked for research, he told the trustees.

The chancellor also pointed to the dwindling percentage of Pitt’s budget that comes from commonwealth appropriations, which stood at about one-third in the mid-1970s, had decreased to 19 percent by 1995, is now down to 12 percent “and we’re heading to 10 percent, I’m afraid,” the chancellor said. (See related story beginning on page 1.)

Moreover, the City of Pittsburgh’s unresolved fiscal crisis puts Pitt, which boasts “the city is our campus,” at a disadvantage in recruiting and retaining top students, the chancellor said.

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According to materials released at the trustees meeting, the campaign, dubbed Discover a World of Possibilities, has attracted from alumni and friends of Pitt 346,980 gifts from 98,450 donors, including 145 donors who have committed at least $1 million.

The campaign also has surpassed its goal of raising 1,500 endowed funds, including scholarships, fellowships, professorships and chairs.

The 129 total endowed professorships and chairs affords Pitt a competitive edge in recruiting faculty, Nordenberg told the trustees. “The appointment of a faculty member to an endowed chair, one of the highest honors the University can bestow, allows us to compete for the top faculty,” Nordenberg said.

Pitt’s endowment also rose from about $1.12 billion in fiscal year 2003 to $1.36 billion in FY04, an increase of 18 percent, the chancellor noted, compared to the national average increase of 15.1 percent.

Other signs of fiscal health over the past four years, Nordenberg said, include an increase in annual attracted research dollars from $3.39 million in 2000 to $559 million last year; an operating budget hike from $1 billion to $1.33 billion, and an increase of the employment pool from about 9,000 employees to almost 12,000.

“We’ve seen a 25 percent increase in our employment base over 10 years,” due in large measure to the increase in research funding, Nordenberg said. “We’re importing the dollars that pay for those jobs.”

Nordenberg also praised the trustees for their private giving to Pitt, which he said has increased by 1,000 percent since 1998.

A breakdown of the capital campaign funds raised includes:

• 272 new named endowed scholarship funds ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 each for a total of 690, an increase of 65 percent in the number of such funds over the past seven years;

• 43 new named endowed faculty chairs of $1.5 million to $2.5 million each for a total of 83, an increase of 108 percent in chairs;

• 12 new named endowed fellowship funds of $250,000 to $1 million each for a total of 80, an increase of 65 percent in the number of such funds;

• Nine new named endowed professorships of $750,000 to $1 million each for a total of 46, an increase of 35 percent in named professorships, and

• 309 new named miscellaneous faculty and student resource endowments of $10,000 to $500,000 each to support such activities and programs as research projects, research travel, book purchases and student academic projects, for a total of 649 of these endowments, representing an increase of 91 percent in the number of such funds.

-Peter Hart