The University of Puget Sound announced its largest single gift Saturday – $8 million from a Colorado couple – as part of a massive $125 million fundraising effort.
The capital campaign is the largest in the private college’s 123-year history, and the public part began Saturday evening at a 500-person gala at Memorial Fieldhouse on North 11th Street and Union Avenue in Tacoma.
UPS President Ron Thomas said in an interview earlier Saturday that the school’s last capital campaign ended in 2001 and raised about $68 million.
“We’re more than doubling the goal,” he said. “We’re an ambitious place.”
He’s not starting from scratch. The campaign’s “quiet phase” started four years ago and already has raised $74 million, including three anonymous gifts of $5 million or more. It also includes $8 million from Charles and Gwen Lillis, whose daughter Jessica graduated from UPS in 2005.
Their foundation is based in Castle Rock, Colo., and run by Gwen Lillis, a UPS trustee. Charles Lillis is the former CEO of broadband cable pioneer MediaOne Group. Their gift will make permanent an academic scholarship program that started at UPS in 2007. Each year, two Lillis scholars are chosen from the incoming class. The scholarships cover the entire cost of school and are renewable for four years.
Other results of the past few years’ fundraising can be seen around campus, most recently in the August opening of Weyerhaeuser Hall, the school’s new health-science center. And while the capital campaign plans improvements to the 97-acre campus, facilities are not the top priority.
The largest single portion of the goal, $44 million, is earmarked for scholarships.
“In a time when college was never more important and never more expensive, we want to keep that (liberal arts) education available to qualified students everywhere,” Thomas said.
Tuition plus room and board at UPS costs about $47,000 a year, according to the school, though Thomas said almost no student among the 2,650 enrolled pays that price. About 90 percent of the student body receives some sort of financial aid, he said.
Thomas also echoed some of the worry over student debt that has bubbled up, most recently in the national Occupy protests. The average debt of college graduates this year is almost $23,000, according to data crunched earlier this year by Mark Kantrowitz of the student-aid website FinAid.org.
“Many have been concerned over increasing debt burden,” Thomas said, but college is still a good investment. “Everyone recognizes that the strongest engine for social and economic advancement is the college degree.”
“We’re likely not to have a single career or two in the next generation,” he said, “but probably five or six or seven careers in areas that are not even invented. So we need to teach people who know how to learn and can think between the lines.”
UPS’ campaign is being led by trustees Bill Weyerhaeuser and Rick Brooks, CEO of retailer Zumiez Inc. In addition to Weyerhaeuser Hall, goals include:
• $44 million for expanded scholarships.
• $16 million for faculty support, including funding for research and endowed chairs.
• $26.5 million raised through annual giving for general operations.
• $3 million for athletics and campus life.
• $17.5 million for a new athletics and aquatics center.
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546 kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/business Twitter: @KCooperTNT
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