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What began
in October 1992 as the most ambitious fundraising campaign ever attempted in
the state of Oregon concluded in December 1998 as the most successful.
A 98-cent donation from a UO student and a $25 million gift from a graduate
were among 233,442 individual gifts that poured into the University during its
six-year Oregon Campaign. The campaign raised more than a quarter of a billion
dollars for scholarships, endowed professorships, curriculum development and
research, and capital projects. The final campaign total of $255.3 million far
exceeded the campaign's original goal of $150 million.
The College of Arts and Sciences
received $36.4 million in gifts and pledges, surpassing its own goal of $30
million. The commitments were broad-based, ranging from a dozen gifts of $1
million or more, to literally thousands of annual gifts of $5 and up.
"This is unprecedented in the history of our institution," observes an
understandably amazed Joe Stone
, CAS dean. "We're overwhelmed with the extent and generosity of the
support."
Below are highlights of the campaign, including profiles of three people whose
gifts provided inspiration at important moments. Thanks to everyone!
Hamacher actually dropped out of the UO in 1949, just two credits shy of a
degree. But he returned to earn his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1960. His
first major was in business, but he changed to economics after taking a couple
of courses. He just liked economics, he said. "My favorite subject was
public finance."
He was not an outstanding student, Hamacher confessed in 1992, the year before
his death. But he felt his liberal arts education exposed him to areas he
hadn't been able to appreciate, he said. "It enriched my life."
"I asked myself what would do the most good," Bray said. "While
I think research is important, I'm not sure that we are doing enough to
identify and reward outstanding teachers."
Bray, a 1953 UO graduate, recalled his ideal teacher and mentor, Lloyd W. Staples,
UO professor emeritus of
geological sciences
. It was Staples who inspired a young Bray in his earth science studies, which
led to a career of twenty-nine years with Humble Oil Company, which later
became Exxon.
The Richard A. Bray Faculty Endowment
is under the control of the dean of arts and sciences. There are just three
specifications for its use: Recipients will have demonstrated excellence in
teaching as well as scholarship; they are willing to provide professional
service to the academic field or the larger community; and each award will have
a leveraging effect, academically or financially. "Right now, anything we
can do to keep our top faculty happy enough to stay around," Bray said at
the time, "is to our advantage."
A modest man with a modest lifestyle, Keith attributes his success in both
academia and the commercial world in part to his experience at the UO. An
award-winning doctoral student in the 1960s, he went on to teach at the
University of California at Berkeley and later became a full professor at Penn
State. In 1978 he joined the commercial end of science.
He shortly established himself as a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, eventually
merging his own company with another to form Watson Pharmaceuticals, of which
he is Chairman of the Board.
Success and opportunity go hand-in-hand, and Alec Keith wanted to ensure that
his descendants will have the opportunity for a top-notch education. "I've
always said that first-rate universities recruit first-rate faculties," he
explained. "Second-rate universities recruit third-rate faculties."
Faculty Support. Funding for outstanding
faculty was the chief focus of this campaign. Major gifts like the Hamacher
Chair in
Economics endowed a permanent position, while fellowships will
continue to supplement salaries and research funds, as well as support visiting
faculty from other institutions. Examples include the Norman H. Brown Faculty
Fellowship in Arts and Sciences, the Petrone Faculty Fellowship,
and the Endeavor Faculty Fellowship in History.
Gifts like these help departments retain and recruit top scholars and teachers.
Program Support. Quality instruction and
the infrastructure that makes it work improved as a result of the campaign. A
$1 million anonymous gift, for example, created a discretionary fund for
special projects in undergraduate programs. And gifts from Don and Willie
Tykeson helped establish the new Center for the Teaching of Writing,
as well as the Tykeson Deanship Endowment Fund,
which finances the development of courses and teaching methods.
Graduate programs also benefited from the generosity of alumni and friends.
Ranging from monies for furniture and room remodeling to buying computer
equipment and supplementing the salary of undergraduate coordinators, these
gifts have kept the quality of UO teaching on a world-class level.
Student Support.
Scholarships provide opportunity for students and reward their high
achievements. Three examples from among the many liberal arts scholarships --
the Susan Winn Memorial Scholarship, the Everett Del Monte Scholarship,
and the CAS Dean's Scholarship
-- supported more than two dozen students during the Oregon Campaign. 1245 University of Oregon • Eugene, OR • 97403-1245 Copyright © 1999 University
of Oregon
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It was November 1992 when soft-spoken lumberman and UO alum John B. Hamacher
donated a cool million dollars for the first fully endowed chair of the Oregon
Campaign. His gift established the Hamacher Chair in 
In January 1993, retired oil executive Richard Bray
issued a challenge. With his $200,000 gift, Bray helped establish a faculty
"fighting fund" aimed at retaining and attracting top-notch faculty.
The gift immediately secured a matching grant from the Faculty Endowment Fund,
endorsed by the 1991 Oregon state legislature. This $400,000 pot then allowed
recipients to qualify for other matching-grant federal and private programs --
effectively quadrupling the original gift.
The news was announced in April 1994: Alec Keith, professor and
scientist, had made the largest gift in UO history to date. The combination of
cash and shares of stock in his company were valued at $8.7 million. In
accordance with standard practice for many large donations, the school is
slated to receive the gift upon Keith's death. Income from the funds will then
be used to support faculty chairs in 
