[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 25, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1349-E1350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE CAPITAL CAMPAIGN FOR HOWARD
UNIVERSITY.
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HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my support and
pride in the outstanding achievements of the historical $275 million
Capital Campaign for Howard University.
The president of the Howard University Pat Swygert and his Howard
University Trustee Team achieved remarkable results by raising $275
million in a 5 year fund-raising campaign. The plan broke several
records, including the most amount of money raised by an African-
American institution and a record for Howard. These results were
unthinkable without strong support of the alumnae, trustees and the
involvement of the Congress. This year Congress contributed $204.3
million to Howard University and $28.9 million to Howard University
Hospital.
The money raised through the Capital Campaign greatly improved Howard
University by establishing modern equipped computer labs, glass walled
conference rooms, exhibition galleries and other necessary facilities
for successful student education. Hundreds of scholarships helped many
students to complete their education reducing the burden of student
loans. Growing number of alumni donate to Howard, seeing the success
and achievements of the University. President Pat Swygert and his
campaign did the terrific work not only raising the impressive amount
of money, but also improving Howard as well as raising the reputation
and the respect of the school.
(By Kathryn Masterson)
Washington.--As a dental student 35 years ago, Leo E. Rouse
and his Howard University classmates learned to fill cavities
and cap teeth by crowding around one faculty member and
angling for a clear view of the day's demonstration.
Today students at Howard's College of Dentistry, where Dr.
Rouse is now the dean, get an unobstructed view of dental
procedures from computer monitors mounted on 45 workstations
in the school's new simulation laboratory. If they miss
something, they can go back and review by watching DVDs in
the lab or on their laptops.
The $1.3-million lab, which was built with money from the
university's recently completed capital campaign, does more
than enhance the students' experience, Dr. Rouse says. It has
helped bring in donations from alumni and almost doubled the
number of applications for the school's 85 seat class, from
about 1,400 before the lab was built to 2,710 last year.
``Word gets around,'' Dr. Rouse said. ``A school that has
new stuff is attractive. ``
After raising $275 million in its 5 year fund-raising
campaign, the 11,000-student university has plenty of new
stuff to show off. There's a simulated trading room in the
School of Business, a van that travels around Washington to
screen men for prostate cancer, an exhibition gallery in the
architecture school, computer labs and glass-walled
conference rooms in the health-science library, and almost
300 named scholarships.
The campaign broke a record for Howard, whose trustees and
officers first considered a more modest $100 million goal
that the university president, H. Patrick Swygert, thought
was too small. The effort also broke a record for the amount
of money raised by an African-American institution.
Thanks in part to those gifts, the university's endowment,
which was $144 million when Mr. Swygert came in 1995, has
swelled to $510 million, an amount that put Howard among the
136 wealthy institutions asked to tell the U.S. Senate
Finance Committee how they spend their endowments.
William F.L. Moses, a senior program director at the Kresge
Foundation, says the ``path-breaking, benchmark-setting''
Howard campaign sets new expectations for how much money
historically black institutions can raise. Kresge has
supported programs to strengthen fund raising at historically
black colleges and universities, giving $18 million in grants
over 5 years to five institutions (Howard was not among them)
and $8 million to the institutional-advancement program at
the United Negro College Fund.
``It sets the bar, that this kind of success is possible
and HBCU's can compete with mainstream institutions,'' Mr.
Moses said. ``HBCU's can compete with the best.''
Alumni Make a Difference
Howard's success was especially notable for how the
university involved its alumni.
Alumni giving has been a challenge for historically black
colleges, said Elfred Anthony Pinkard, executive director for
UNCF's Institute for Capacity Building, which helps member
colleges with fund raising, enrollment, and other management
challenges. (Howard is not a member of the UNCF.) The
Institute for Capacity Building has given grants to
historically black colleges to hire consultants and buy
software programs to help advancement efforts.
Alumni-affairs offices at the smaller institutions often
have just one or two employees and giving rates for the
colleges who work with the institute range from 7 percent to
as high as 38 percent, Mr. Pinkard said. The national average
is 12 percent, according to the Council for Advancement and
Support of Education's 2007 Voluntary Support of Education
survey.
Ann E. Kaplan, director of the Council for Aid to
Education's survey on giving, said historically black
colleges tend to have less mature fund-raising operations
that rely more on money from foundations and corporations
than from alumni. When she spoke at a UNCF conference, Ms.
Kaplan said, she heard from college leaders who were more
focused on raising money for current operations than on long-
term planning and faced challenges such as poorly kept alumni
records or understaffed advancement offices.
Though tithing to churches and giving to religious
organizations are strong traditions among many African-
Americans, the 19 historically black colleges that responded
to the council's survey (a number Ms. Kaplan said was too
small to be representative) had an average alumni-giving rate
of 6 percent, half the overall national average.
``There's no reason to think HBCU's can't be as successful
in raising money from their alumni, but they need to ask,''
Ms. Kaplan said. ``Asking is the No. 1 reason why people
give.''
[[Page E1350]]
Mr. Swygert knew Howard wouldn't make its $250 million goal
without significant alumni participation, but he also knew
that the university needed to do some work before it
approached them for money. A previous capital campaign had
been started in the 1980s with a goal of $100 million but was
never completed. At the start of Mr. Swygert's presidency,
annual giving by alumni was at about 4 percent.
As one of only two federally chartered universities, Howard
receives direct appropriations from the federal government
each year. Congress had noted the low alumni giving rate, and
one of the first things lawmakers asked Mr. Swygert to do as
university president was to increase it. A higher giving rate
would provide evidence that Howard graduates valued the
education they received and that Congress should continue to
maintain its level of financial support for the institution.
This year Congress gave Howard University $204.3 million and
its hospital $28.9 million, according to the Department of
Education.
During the campaign, Howard's annual alumni-giving rate
went as high as 20 percent, and it is now at 17 percent.
The key to getting more alumni to give, Mr. Swygert said,
was to re-engage them with Howard by showing them the
university's key asset: its students. Howard ran ads in local
and national newspapers featuring students and sent postcards
to alumni introducing them to Howard's Rhodes, Marshall, and
Fulbright scholars, as well as distinguished alumni.
``People give to students, they give to ideas, they give to
memory,'' Mr. Swygert said. ``The idea of enabling a young
person to go forth and do well is a very powerful notion.''
Howard hired Virgil E. Ecton, who raised more than $1.6
billion for UNCF in his 31-year career there, to run the
campaign. As vice president for university advancement, Mr.
Ecton oversaw upgrades to Howard's Web site, alumni magazine,
and advancement office. Alumni records were improved, and the
database of Howard graduates grew from 30,000 entries to more
than 60,000.
Backing a Winner
Early on, trustees helped create momentum for the campaign
with several large gifts. Frank Savage, an alumnus, chairman
emeritus of the board, and chief executive of Savage Holdings
LLC, an international financial-services company, announced
he was giving $5 million to the campaign. Richard D. Parsons,
a trustee who led the campaign and is chairman of Time
Warner, gave more than $1 million. James E. Silcott, a Los
Angeles architect, alumnus, and trustee, gave $3 million. Mr.
Swygert, an alumnus, donated more than $2 million.
``That sent a clear signal to trustees, the giving
community, and the community [at large] that we were serious
about this campaign,'' Mr. Ecton said.
Mr. Ecton, Mr. Swygert, and trustees went on the road,
appearing at a series of alumni events around the country. At
the events, which drew up to 1,000 people in New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Houston, and other cities,
alumni would get up and pledge their support to the
university, and the events began to take on a competitive
spirit, Mr. Ecton said. One alumnus in Philadelphia pledged
$1 million, the Miami event raised $8 million, and the New
York event, held at the new headquarters of Time Warner,
resulted in between $25 million and $30 million in pledges,
he said.
``People like to be associated with a winner,'' Mr. Ecton
said. ``It was clear we were winning.''
At the end of the campaign, 33 percent of the money raised
was from Howard alumni. Nationally, in 2007, alumni giving
was 27.8 percent of total private giving, according to the
Voluntary Support of Education survey.
One student who benefited directly from the money raised
was Raquel SK Thompson, who graduated from Howard in May with
a degree in architecture and received a trustees' scholarship
during her last two years. The scholarship, which was backed
by money raised during the campaign, covered half her
tuition.
The money was a great help, said Ms. Thompson, who is from
Barbados and wanted to attend a historically black college.
The financial pressures of tuition, an unfavorable exchange
rate, the cost of materials for her architecture classes, and
restrictions on working off the campus were difficult for her
and her parents, Ms. Thompson said, and without assistance
she may have had to cut back on classes and work more on the
campus in order to save money.
``It helped me finish school,'' said Ms. Thompson, who is
now looking for a job in Washington or New York. Without the
money, ``I definitely think I would have been there another
year,'' she said.
Both Mr. Swygert and Mr. Ecton say Howard should tap more
alumni for larger donations in its next campaign. Fifty-one
alumni gave more than $1 million, and both officials think
there is potential there to raise more. Mr. Swygert, who is
retiring at the end of June, believes Howard's next campaign
should have a goal of at least $1 billion. The top
institutions have campaigns that size, and Mr. Swygert says
Howard should be in that group.
``I think it's a necessity,'' Mr. Swygert said. ``It's a
stretch, but $250 million was a stretch.''
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