The Campaign Report 2006
Campaign Momentum: A tremendous outpouring of support
Yale College: Excellence in undergraduate education
The Arts: The frontier of culture
The Sciences: The critical quest
The World: The challenge of the global community
From the President
Dear Friends,
On September 30, 2006, we celebrated the launch of Yale Tomorrow, a five-year campaign to raise $3 billion for the University. It was a day marked by great optimism and a tremendous sense of momentum, thanks to the generosity of those who have already stepped forward to lend their support to this ambitious undertaking. On behalf of the entire Yale community, please accept my gratitude for all you have already contributed to the future of the University and for what you might be planning to do.
Yale has always had extraordinary support from alumni, parents, and friends, and the performance of our Investments Office over the past two decades has been spectacular. So many may ask, “Why do we need to embark on such an extensive campaign?” The answer lies in Yale’s aspirations for its future. Our endowment and existing levels of support provide a strong foundation for our current activities. Yale Tomorrow is our collective opportunity to create a Yale of permanently greater breadth and strength by investing in new programs, expanded and new facilities, and support for our faculty and students.
We have looked at programs that are already among the world’s best and challenged ourselves to make them even stronger. We have also dreamed of what is possible in the world, and asked how Yale can make even greater contributions through its scholarship and its graduates.
Although our goals are ambitious, they are also focused. Our priorities fall into four key areas where we can take significant leaps forward: The College, The Arts, The Sciences, and The World.
I invite you to read about the tremendous impact of your gifts. This first report of the campaign is truly a celebration of the alumni, parents, and friends who help make Yale one of the world’s great universities. Thank you for supporting all that we are today and for embracing all that we can be for future generations.
Richard C. Levin ’74 Ph.D.
President
From the Campaign Co-Chairs
Dear Friends,
We are proud to introduce this first report of the Yale Tomorrow campaign. It reflects the tremendous commitment of alumni, parents, and friends who share a vision for the University. As Campaign Co-Chairs, we join President Levin in expressing our deep gratitude to all of you who have contributed so much to Yale early in the campaign.
During the two-year nucleus fund phase, generous donors committed $1.147 billion to support campaign priorities. And by the public launch of the campaign on September 30, over $1.3 billion had been committed. These gifts have given us tremendous momentum as we seek to raise funds to meet our $3 billion goal over the next five years. We hope you will enjoy reading about the impact of some of the early gifts to the campaign in the pages that follow.
Our goals for the campaign are indeed ambitious—and they must be—if we are to realize our vision for the future of Yale. Over the past two years, as we have talked with supporters around the country and the world, we have discovered just how many of you understand and embrace the critical priorities President Levin has outlined for the University: The College, The Arts, The Sciences, and The World.
The great success of the past two years is certainly testament to what we can accomplish together. We need and look forward to your continuing support. Thank you for being part of this extraordinary opportunity.
G. Leonard Baker, Jr. ’64
Edward P. Bass ’67
Joshua Bekenstein ’80
Roland W. Betts ’68
Susan M. Crown ’80
Campaign Momentum: A tremendous outpouring of support
Donors affirmed Yale’s vision by contributing an extraordinary $1.147 billion to the Yale Tomorrow campaign nucleus fund during the period July 1, 2004—June 30, 2006. By the campaign’s public launch on September 30, 2006, giving had increased by another $161 million, to $1.308 billion.
Alumni, parents, friends, corporations, foundations, and others rose to the challenge, showing tremendous support across all priorities, with gifts large and small. The Yale Alumni Fund had another record year, with gains coming from many of the graduate and professional schools. Capital commitments from parents more than tripled, as they invested in the future for their children, for Yale, and for society.
“We are so grateful to the many generous donors who have already embraced and supported Yale’s vision for the future. In the finest Yale tradition, you are proving that every donor counts in Yale’s commitment to make a difference,” said Inge Reichenbach, Vice President for Development.
Endowed funds give Yale the power to lead
Gifts to the Endowment fund Yale’s success, by enabling it to attract
and sustain a concentration of the world’s best faculty and students.
Unrestricted gifts to the endowment allow the University to direct funding
to innovative programs and to priorities, such as science, medicine,
business, globalization, and the environment, that will have the biggest
impact in the twenty-first century.
Current-use gifts make Yale responsive and dynamic
Current-use gifts are used to fund specific programs or research
and to underwrite needs as they occur, such as faculty research and curriculum
development, Yale’s unique academic and student life, and financial
aid. Unrestricted gifts, in particular, give Yale the flexibility to
provide strategic seed funding for emerging programs and to quickly direct
funding to operational priorities.
Gifts for facilities make Yale an inspiring place to be
Yale needs world-class facilities to attract the most accomplished faculty
and students, and to enable them to do their very best work. With cutting
edge laboratories that enable new discoveries, renovated masterpieces
that evoke Yale’s traditions, and new spaces that inspire artistic
expression, Yale’s buildings project its vibrancy and breadth
of endeavor.
New gifts are critical to Endowment growth and Yale’s
future
The strength of the Yale Endowment drives the strength of the University,
helping to fund Yale’s excellence and competitive standing as a
global university. In 2005–2006, spending from the Endowment provided
32% of net revenues and was Yale’s single largest source of budgetary
support.
The Endowment could not provide this level of support, however, if it were not continuously fueled by new contributions. Since 1950, over 75% of the Endowment’s growth has been determined by additional gifts and the subsequent investment performance on those gifts. These ongoing contributions have given Yale its ability to lead, and new gifts will continue to be essential for the Endowment to keep pace with Yale’s evolving needs.
Endowment performance multiplies the power of gifts
Yale’s Endowment earned a 22.9% return in the fiscal year ending
June 30, 2006, bringing its value to $18.0 billion. The Endowment returned
an annualized 17.2% over the past ten years, placing the University’s
investment performance in the top rank of institutional funds. This superb
stewardship has dramatically multiplied the value of Endowment contributions
and the impact of individual gifts. For example, a $100,000 scholarship
endowed at Yale ten years ago, grown by the Endowment’s rate of
return, would have appreciated almost five-fold as of 2006, allowing
the original gift to provide broader and deeper support to students over
time.
Yale College: Excellence in undergraduate education
This past year, Yale College was the most selective of all the Ivy League schools. Applications for the Class of 2010 topped 21,000 for just over 1,300 places. For students in this freshman class, the future is limitless. Like all Yale undergraduates, they will be taught by professors deeply committed to undergraduate education. They will develop a broad knowledge of science and quantitative reasoning, a greater fluency in a foreign language, superior writing and communications skills, and a deeper sense of global issues. Our entering students will have the opportunity to voice diverse opinions around small seminar tables, engage in research in world-class labs, and intern almost anywhere on earth.
In short, today’s Yale students are the beneficiaries of an education that is only getting more extraordinary. “Two years ago we started implementing the recommendations of the Committee on Yale College Education (CYCE). While many past reports have ended in the dustbin of time, this one is well along in execution,” commented Yale College Associate Dean Penelope Laurans, who served on the CYCE.
President Levin has characterized Yale College as “a laboratory for leadership” where the most talented students, regardless of financial need, can gain the knowledge, skills, and values they need to make a difference in the world. That laboratory includes every residential college dining room and performance space, every informal conversation between faculty and students, and the over 250 organizations that reflect Yale students’ passions. “From athletics to public service, from theater to economics, Yale students want to do it all. Our job is to help them every way we can,” said Peter Salovey ’86 Ph.D., Dean of Yale College and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology.
The unswerving support of alumni, parents, and friends allows Yale College to do just that.
The Arts: The frontier of culture
Yale’s unique strengths in the arts are recognized around the world. No other private university has top-ranked professional schools in art, architecture, music, and drama of comparable distinction. Every day, Yale graduates are having an impact on contemporary culture—in studios, classrooms, galleries, concert halls, and on stages large and small.
This past year graduates of the School of Drama received a total of sixteen Tony nominations. Yehudi Wyner ’50, ’53 MU.SM won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his piano concerto “Chiavi in Mano,” Ellen Alfest ’97 MFA won the Rosenthal Award in painting for a young American painter of distinction, Alan Greenberg ’65 m.arch won the coveted Driehaus Prize in architecture, and Robert (Buzz) Yudell ’69, ’73 M.Arch. was honored by the American Institute of Architects when it named Moore, Ruble, Yudell as Firm of the Year.
The prominence of Yale graduates in the arts reflects exceptional teaching, performance, and exhibition opportunities available at the University. From the Advanced Design Studio at the School of Architecture, this year conducted by Frank Gehry hon ’00, to the Open Studios at the School of Art, students learn about the demands and rewards of the professional community.
Whether in productions at the Yale Repertory Theatre, in concerts at Sprague Hall, or in numerous other venues on campus, Yale students are directly and enthusiastically involved in innovative and demanding performances. This year, for example, students from both the School of Drama and the School of Music participated in the staging of two operas, Brundibar and Comedy on the Bridge, by the creative team of Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak hon ’97.
As Yale undergraduates and graduate students take advantage of extraordinary resources in all the arts, the contributions of alumni, parents, and friends have played far more than a supporting role.
The Sciences: The critical quest
Yale’s commitment to the sciences and technology reflects their importance to the future of both the University and the world. From solutions to global warming, to advances in medical science, to research that ignites new industries, society looks to great universities for breakthroughs and progress.
Since 2000, when Yale announced its plan to invest $1 billion in science and medicine, we have opened three state-of-the-art laboratory facilities in Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, and Engineering. The University has also built critical research and teaching strength in pioneering areas of science, including genomics and proteomics, human genetics, computational biology, biomedical engineering, nanotechnology, and quantum computing.
This past year, Yale researchers deciphered the “wiring pattern” of cell signaling networks; identified a genetic link to Tourette’s syndrome; devised a way to predict the microstructure of crystals as they form in materials; and mapped protein binding that is critical to life. At the School of Medicine a new interdepartmental program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration, and Repair was launched to accelerate the pace of research on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, multiple sclerosis, and other neurodegenerative diseases.
From the recently announced Ph.D. program at the School of Nursing, to the new Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness, to the 400 courses in science and quantitative reasoning now offered at Yale College, the University is expanding the ways it educates tomorrow’s leaders in research, engineering, and health care.
For every scientist at Yale, this is a period of growth and promise. It is also a time when the support of alumni, parents, and friends is more critical than ever.
The World: The challenge of the global community
The Yale Tomorrow campaign has already made impressive contributions to Yale’s goal of being a global university. One of the most exciting initiatives has been the commitment to offer every undergraduate an opportunity to study or work abroad during his or her four years at Yale. Helping to make that aspiration a reality, Yale alumni have been instrumental in organizing and funding summer internships, including eighteen new internships in Hong Kong, seven in Singapore, fifteen in Brussels, and a growing number in Beijing (33) and London (27). In 2005–2006, Yale offered over 900 overseas opportunities, and a record number of students studied or pursued internships or research opportunities abroad.
When President Hu Jintao of China visited the campus last April, he saluted both Yale’s 150-year association with China—the longest of any U.S. university—and President Levin’s recent emphasis on strengthening those ties. This fall, Yale launched a unique collaborative program in which Yale College students live in the same dormitory with leading Chinese students at Peking University. Until now, the premier Chinese universities housed international students in separate dormitories. Our students have the opportunity to model inclusive global communities. The $50 million gift from Maurice R. Greenberg and the Starr Foundation to support exchanges and initiatives with China will fuel future efforts in China.
On campus, Yale now offers over 600 courses on international topics, and scholars and students from over 100 countries contribute great intellectual diversity to the community. The World Fellows Program, the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, and the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization are focal points for research projects, conferences, and cultural exchanges that reflect Yale’s role as a leading global university.
Internationalization is, by definition, an all-encompassing and ambitious goal. Yale could not have initiated and expanded so many programs without the ongoing and generous support of alumni, parents, and friends.
