The $1B Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon gave James Harrell a chance. The high school honors student didn't disappoint. This past summer alone, he interned in Washington, D.C., for Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz, then flew to Madrid for a four-week study-abroad stint, and, finally, ended up halfway around the world in Qatar, where he's helping to teach statistics to Carnegie Mellon's Middle Eastern students during the fall semester. It's a long way—literally and figuratively—from his rural hometown of Freedom, Pa.
"Even though I went an hour away from home to go to college, it feels like a world away," Harrell says. "Since I came to Carnegie Mellon, I feel like I've come into my own. I've been able to do amazing things that I never thought I could."
Harrell, a junior, already has been accepted into the Heinz School's accelerated master's program in public policy and management. Ultimately, he wants to impact national education policy—with a focus on under-resourced urban and rural schools.
His success story has been one of his own making, but he'll be the first to tell you it might never have happened. "If I didn't have financial assistance, I wouldn't be here." Period.
The university gave Harrell a substantial financial-aid package that enabled him to enroll. It has been a win-win. Harrell's life has changed forever, and Carnegie Mellon has an elite student.
Unfortunately, there are many "James Harrells" who apply to Carnegie Mellon each year that can't be helped.
"It's really quite simple: The larger your endowment, the better you can attract and keep the best scholars and faculty," says Ray Lane, a member of the university's board of trustees.
Carnegie Mellon has approximately $1 billion in its endowment. That sounds like a lot of money. But not when it's compared to other peer universities whose endowments are far larger. MIT's endowment, for instance, has nearly $10 billion. Stanford University has $17 billion. The University of Pennsylvania has $6.6 billion. And Carnegie Mellon's neighbor, the University of Pittsburgh, has $2.25 billion. To look at it another way, a 5 percent annual return on Carnegie Mellon's endowment is $50 million. The same percentage return for MIT is $500 million.
A healthy endowment does more than support students, explains Lane. "You can better fund research and cutting-edge facilities." Lane is doing his part to preserve Carnegie Mellon's tradition of excellence. This month, he is helping the university announce the kickoff of a historic capital campaign:
Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University.
Lane chairs the endeavor to raise $1 billion by June 30, 2013, which, in part, will go toward increasing the endowment while enhancing a broader network of advocates for the university. The campaign has already raised more than half of its goal before the public announcement. Some of that money came from Lane, former president and COO of Oracle Corporation and current managing partner of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He and his wife gave $5 million to establish the Ray and Stephanie Lane Center for Computational Biology at the university (see homepage story: Disease under Siege).
University President Jared L. Cohon underscores the importance of the campaign. "Carnegie Mellon is a place, throughout its history, where its aspirations and ideas far outstrip its resources. It's very important to narrow that gap and move forward."
Cohon explains that having more money to support students, faculty, facilities, and research will, in turn, enhance Carnegie Mellon—in particular, its worldwide impact in energy and the environment, next-generation computing, quality of life, the arts, and the global economy.
Cohon says, frankly, "I'm hard pressed to think of an institution where money would be better spent than Carnegie Mellon."
James Harrell would agree.
—ELIZABETH MAY
