BERKELEY — The successful completion of University of California Press' $5 million A Voice for Great Ideas Campaign marks an unprecedented investment in UC Press's long-term vision. The exceptional level of philanthropic support allows UC Press to continue its vital role of preserving and encouraging the best thinking and creativity of past, present, and future generations.
Trustees, donors, authors, and other friends recently gathered in San Francisco for a festive celebration at the Wattis Room of Davies Symphony Hall. Their support is especially crucial now, when UC Press faces uncertain sales as a result of the economic downtown as well as the rapid transformation of the publishing industry.
"UC Press makes the important ideas and research generated by this world-class university accessible to scholars, students, and a wide general audience," University of California Vice Provost Dan Greenstein said at the celebration. "I would like to congratulate and thank all those who contributed to this exceptional milestone in University of California Press' history."
The ambitious campaign, launched by the UC Press Foundation Board of Trustees in 2006, was greeted with gifts from 215 generous friends throughout California, the United States and beyond. Of the total, $3.6 million will build UC Press' endowment to support momentous publications in the arts and humanities and $1.6 million will seed the strategic expansion of programs in digital publishing, California and the West, and ecology and the environment. "I am deeply grateful to my fellow campaign chair Martin Paley and Michael McCone for their leadership and to the entire UC Press Foundation Board of Trustees for their enthusiastic support," said UC Press Foundation Chair Jim Naify. "Through their hard work and commitment — together with the dedication of our many friends — the UC Press Foundation raised over $5.2 million to support important research and creative intellectual works."
In its early stages, the campaign was given impetus by UC Press' third prestigious challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an unprecedented accomplishment among university presses. UC Press is deeply grateful to the campaign's other lead benefactors who matched the challenge grant by contributing to humanities scholarship: the Ahmanson Foundation; UC President Emeritus and campaign Honorary Council member Richard C. Atkinson and his family; Barclay and Sharon Simpson; and the Fletcher Jones Foundation. "We are grateful to our benefactors — faced with the common goal of perpetuating the pursuit of ideas, beauty, and understanding of culture and community-for rising to the NEH challenge with exceptional generosity," stated UC Press Director Lynne Withey.
A special effort to build UC Press' Authors Imprint — an endowed fund that will support the publication of first books — received generous contributions from more than 130 authors nationwide. "As an author, I find special pleasure in giving back to UC Press, to the scholarly community, and to my fellow authors," said Dianne Sachko Macleod, professor emerita of art history at UC Davis. "We remember the past in order to render the present more humane, and humane remembrance has no better tool than the book," noted Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former UC Press editor Jack Miles.
Other campaign gifts substantially contributed to UC Press' innovative publishing programs. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's major grant supports UC Press' dramatic expansion in California studies by funding the new journal Boom. A grant from the Getty Foundation will enable the development and publication of a distinguished group of books in American art history, and support from the Stephen Bechtel Fund will advance UC Press' science publishing program by seeding books and digital resources in ecology and the environment with a special focus on water issues. The Bechtel Fund recognizes that harnessing technology to advance knowledge is one of the most significant challenges facing UC Press today. UC Press will continue to raise technology funds to increase access to scholarship for its well-established audiences of scholars, university students, and intellectuals working outside the academy and for new audiences, including high school students and a larger general readership.
With its innovative initiatives and publishing programs, UC Press continues to push the traditional boundaries of books and journals to meet the changing expectations of readers around the globe. Support from its dedicated contributors allows UC Press to advance its mission of championing great ideas, whose market potential is not always the most important consideration. "UC Press is one of the great university presses in the world," said Atkinson, UC president emeritus. "Its pioneering work deserves all the support we can give it."
University of California Press is one of the largest and most distinguished scholarly publishers in the nation. Founded in 1893, it is also among the oldest. Among its peer university presses, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT and Chicago, UC Press is the only one in the West, the only one associated with a public university. Its mission is to enhance lives around the world by advancing scholarship and learning in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. UC Press publishes on international and national topics and is the major publisher of serious scholarship pertaining to California. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions.