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Employee-Led Fundraising Efforts Fuel Faculty-Staff
Campaign
Judy Piercey | January 22, 2007
More than 1000 faculty and staff have rallied and led
fundraising efforts on campus, contributing more than
$1 million in the last five months to The Campaign
for UCSD, the university’s $1 billion fundraising
initiative. The Faculty-Staff Campaign, a component
of the $1 billion Campaign for UCSD, was launched
on August 18, 2006.
Rex Graham, a communications director for the Jacobs
School of Engineering, encouraged colleagues in the
mechanical and aerospace engineering departments to
give online to Jacobs’ Teams in Engineering
Service (TIES), a philanthropic program that enables
undergraduates to use their engineering skills to
help groups ranging from convalescent homes to the
region’s nonprofit organizations. Starting with
a simple email sent before the holidays, Graham’s
initiative prompted a flurry of supportive responses.
“I wouldn’t work here if I didn’t believe in all the great things that UC San Diego has accomplished today, and plans to achieve in the future,” Graham said.
Other successful grassroots fundraising efforts led by UCSD employees include:
- The Bannister Family House provides a home away
from home for families of patients undergoing long-term
care at UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest and Thornton
Hospital in La Jolla. Dana Weintraub, a development
director in the university’s health sciences
division, said her personal efforts to raise money
for this facility comes from the heart. After touring
the Bannister Family House, she was so moved that
she sent a flurry of emails to other UCSD Development
officers to give. “There’s a principle
in development—how can you expect others to
give unless you, too, are emotionally moved to write
a check yourself.”
- Lea Rudee, founding dean of the Jacobs
School of Engineering and currently professor
emeritus, created the Rudee Graduate
Student Research Award, which is presented to one
student each February during the schools’
Annual Research Expo. Now, in conjunction
with the Faculty-Staff Campaign, he is reaching
out to both current and retired faculty to encourage
them to contribute to the fund so that more than
one prize could be awarded to deserving recipients.
“I find being at UCSD so enriching and stimulating,”
noted Rudee. “This is a special campus
and I am thrilled to help contribute both in my
work, and in my philanthropy.”
- The Birch Aquarium at Scripps is one of the only
UC San Diego departments that relies entirely on
earned income and gifts for its operating funds.
According to development director Dyanne Hoffman,
“There are 54 employees here … no faculty,
just full-time and part-time staff positions. Yet,
between September and December, 76 percent of our
employees made a gift to the aquarium thanks to
a matching-gifts incentive provided by one of our
most beloved donors, Charlie Robins.” Gifts
made by the staff will support animal husbandry,
exhibits, the education department and the Birch
Aquarium endowment.
Irma Martinez Velasco, director of campus relations in the Chancellor’s office and a long-time advocate of giving back to UC San Diego, believes that payroll deduction offers an easy and convenient way to support the university. “Payroll deduction is great way for faculty and staff to contribute. Whatever you give, as a whole, adds up – it will make the difference.”
Other UC San Diego faculty and staff members have given generously through individual gifts that include, among others:
- $400,000 to the UCSD Division of Physical Sciences to support
research;
- $125,000 toward funding an endowed faculty chair
in the Division of Arts and Humanities;
- $50,000 to establish an endowed scholarship fund at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences;
- $50,000 to fund an endowed fellowship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography;
- $30,000 to support the UCSD Computational Science Mathematics and Engineering Program;
- $10,000 to the University Libraries; and
- $5,000 to the department of surgery in the Medical
Center
The theme of the employee fundraising
effort at UC San Diego is “Help Take Us Over
the Top.” Faculty and staff may designate
their contribution to any area of UCSD that inspires
them, whether it is science, scholarships, research,
healthcare or the arts. To learn more about the Faculty-Staff
Campaign, visit www.campaign.ucsd.edu/faculty-staff.
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