A university wide, in-depth fundraising campaign has raised more than $251 million since 2001, a figure the university hopes to nearly double in order to fund construction, raise salaries and beef up scholarships. The campaign, which is called the State of the Future campaign, announced a goal of $400 million upon its inception in July 2001.
“The campaign will focus on endowed scholarships and fellowships,” Katie Scott, stewardship assistant for the MSU Foundation, said. “Faculty chairs and professorships, renovated facilities and campus beautification are a big priority.”
The State of the Future campaign, which was named by a university contest winner, is the largest privately funded drive in MSU history, Scott said.
“There is a big misconception that our university is funded by the state,” John Rush, director of major gifts of the Mississippi State Foundation said. “Less than half of our budget comes from state funds.”
University leaders, along with the Mississippi State Foundation, created the campaign to meet long-term needs of individual departments. The needs of collegeslike arts and sciences and departments such as scholarships and research and graduate study were projected and tallied to reach the ambitious $400 million total, Rush said.
A bulk of the money goes to building improvements. “We just received a $10 million gift for improvements to McCool,” Rush said. “McCain Hall also just underwent a $6 million renovation.”
Professor salaries are also of major concern to the campaign, Rush said. “We are below the regional average and by far below the national average in salaries,” he said.
In order to recruit better quality professors, the university must be able to compete with those averages, and the campaign is attempting to meet those standards, Rush added.
Recruiting new students is a priority because of the extra revenues new students bring in addition to the overall growth of the campus. The fund tries to establish deeper relationships with potential donors in order to gain funding for endowed scholarships, Rush said. The foundation provided over $3.3 million in student awards last year.
The improvements made available through the foundation will hopefully allow MSU to gain national attention. “Dr. Lee is concerned with moving up within the U.S. News and World Report rankings,” Rush said.
The most pressing concern for State of the Future, Rush said, is making the college experience better for the students of MSU.
“A key to university progress is raising our expectations of ourselves as we recognize our accountability to the rising expectations of others,” MSU President Charles Lee said in a printed statement about the campaign.