Promise Within campaign gathers faculty support, donations

Faculty members are trumpeting the Promise Within Campaign, part of a larger fundraising campaign to “bridge the gap between state funds and tuition costs,” as President Roderick McDavis put it.“State funding traditionally has been the primary source of revenue for public universities across the nation… Currently, the State of Ohio provides 24 percent of our total budget. Ten years ago, we received 34 percent,” said McDavis on the campaign’s webpage.The Promise Within Campaign, which encourages faculty in particular to donate money and forms part of the Promise Lives Campaign, endeavors to fill the cracks carved by “dwindling state support.”Sam Crowl, an OU faculty member for 43 years and one of the chairs of the Promise Within Campaign, said public universities haven’t always held massive fundraising campaigns, like the Promise Lives Campaign whose goal is $450 million in donations.“In the last 50 to 75 years, public universities have discovered we have to do the same thing [as private universities] because…state support continues to dwindle,” he said. “The problem is everybody squeezed and the universities are one of the few state expenses where there’s another source of income.”That source of income, he said, was the students and their families.“But then that gets away from the whole American ideal of public higher education,” he said.Here is where the Promise Within Campaign comes in.“It’s a way of trying to make the college experience more affordable…make it what it should be in terms of different types of opportunities,” said Howard Dewald, a faculty member for 26 years and another one of the chairs.Crowl said that oftentimes professors donate to student scholarships, academic programs and funds for students to attend conferences, for example, because “that’s something they believe in.” Of the $419 million that has been raised for the overall Promise Lives Campaign, 78 percent is designated for academics and scholarships according to the campaign webpage.For Crowl, the Promise Within Campaign is also a way for professors to support the university—themselves, colleagues, students—and to display their admiration for Athens and the university.He cast his mind back 43 years to when he was sifting through job offers.“[My wife and I] said what many people said: ‘We’ll go [to Athens] for four or five years, and then we’ll look around.’ Didn’t ever have to look around again,” he said. “There was a liveliness here. There was a sense of it not being in the mold.”“For those of us who have been teaching here for 43 years, for those of us who have made our lives here, I think we have come to sense that there is something special about it. So we’re happy to support the university in any way we can,” Crowl said.The confidence that faculty express in the university then might incite more wealthy donors to contribute to the overall campaign, he pointed out.Both Crowl and Dewald encouraged faculty to donate, however modest the amount, and stressed strength in numbers.“It’s important for as many of the faculty and staff to make a commitment,” said Dewald. “Every gift helps.”