$4 Billion Columbia Campaign
When launched in 2006, the
Columbia Campaign was the largest in the history of American higher education. While other peer institutions have since started their own $4 billion-plus fundraising efforts, Columbia is building on its current momentum to ensure its twenty-first century global leadership in teaching, research, patient care, and student diversity. Expected to conclude in 2011, the campaign is currently well ahead of schedule, having already raised some $2.6 billion of its goal.
Fittingly, the campaign was launched with a remarkable interdisciplinary discussion among some of the University’s most admired faculty members, including Mary D’Alton, Carol Gluck, Brian Greene, Margo Jefferson, Eric Kandel, and Vikram Pandit, with live events connected to Morningside Heights by satellite from London and Hong Kong. See the video.>
“We cannot know what new discoveries lie ahead,” President Bollinger said in launching the campaign, “the diseases that might be cured or prevented, the new perspectives that might find voice in literature or on stage, or the connections Columbia students might draw between disparate fields of knowledge or between the classics of the Core and the challenges of the day. But we do know that bringing together powerful and creative minds to teach, learn, and pursue ideas will take the University to new heights and bring unforeseeable benefits to the nation and the world.”
Read the full text of the president’s message. >
Goals of the Campaign
The Columbia Campaign seeks to raise money for talent, tools, and transformative programs of teaching, research, and study. A new endowment to fund financial aid and faculty in perpetuity represents 40 percent of the overall campaign goal ($1.6 billion). Another 25 percent of the campaign ($1 billion) is designated for capital investment in work space and facilities for this activity. The remaining 35 percent ($1.4 billion) will provide program support for Columbia’s existing jewels—its influential Core Curriculum, distinguished faculty, and a host of other programs that must develop to reflect a changing world.
The campaign will raise money to benefit the entire University. Priorities include $865 million for undergraduate education as part of an overall $1 billion goal for the Arts and Sciences; $1 billion for teaching and research at Columbia University Medical Center (the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the College of Dental Medicine); $885 million for the professional schools on the Morningside campus, $335 million for other units—the Earth Institute, Columbia Libraries, and the athletics program—and $780 million for other initiatives and programs.
Find out more on the Giving to Columbia site. >
