As we noted last year, to be a national leader in art and humanities research and education for the 21st Century, the College will need to be entrepreneurial in a constrained environment characterized by competitive markets for top faculty and graduate students and reduced public funding for education.
We have made significant progress in expanding our revenue base through our Research Office, our online initiatives, and through our advancement activities.
In November 2015, the College of Arts & Letters reached its original goal of $10 million for the Empower Extraordinary campaign. At that time, we identified enough capacity to justify a new goal of $20 million and have since then raised an additional $7 million toward that revised goal. Our three major fundraising goals are directly connected to our strategic vision: 1) to raise funds for 5 new endowed faculty positions in the priority areas of critical diversity in a digital age; engaged scholarship in an interconnected world; integrated design and media arts; 2) to generate resources for 10 new endowed graduate fellowships across the College; and 3) to raise $10 million to endow the Citizens Scholars program.