On Nov. 4, the Faculty Senate will host its bien¬nial Scholarship and Community Conference, titled “Professors and Private Philanthropy.” Beginning with an 8:30 a.m. continental breakfast and concluding with a luncheon session, the conference will explore questions such as:

A hallmark of a great university is a strong financial base. Great universities find ways to attract gifts from private sources and to grow those gifts. Many of those contributions are gifts that keep on giving, year after year, because they are endowed — perhaps as scholarships, chairs and professorships or build¬ings and facilities. With a strong ongoing financial base, a great university is less dependent on tuition, fees or state budgets to continue advancing its mission.

The following quote from Utah State University’s Web site puts the issue even more cogently:
The bigger the endowment, the stronger the academic reputation of the university. “Endowments” is a more accurate term, because a university endowment is a combination of all sorts of endowments established by alumni and friends.

Please invest time on Nov. 4 to join us as we explore ways to build our financial base and our academic reputation. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive. You also may want to encourage some of your best doctoral students with ambitions in higher education to participate.

Allen Warner
Faculty Senate President