Chancellor Michael Drake believes the campaign's achievement is testament to the commitment and vision of UC Irvine's generous donors. "Our ‘Shaping the Future' effort has generated the single largest cash gift in UC Irvine's history as well as many other gifts that have transformed our academic community in substantive ways," Drake said.
"Part of our campaign's success is due to significantly increasing the number of donors, which is gratifying because philanthropic support is critical to advancing the university. I'm particularly pleased at reaching this milestone given what the financial world has been through these past two years."
As of mid-April, UC Irvine had received more than $600 million in gifts and pledges via more than 145,000 donations. Since "Shaping the Future" was launched in 2005, private support has helped fund new programs in public health, pharmaceutical sciences and nursing science — plus California's first new law school at a public institution in at least 40 years.
Ranked sixth on the Sierra Club's list of the greenest U.S. campuses, UC Irvine has added nearly 5 million square feet of instructional, research and medical facility space since the campaign began, including UC Irvine Douglas Hospital, Sue & Bill Gross Hall, the New Media Arts Building & Gallery, Humanities Gateway, Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, a telemedicine/medical education building and the 275,000-square-foot Student Center.
James Mazzo, president of Abbott Medical Optics and chairman of the UC Irvine Foundation, said: "UC Irvine has a strong and compelling vision that is relevant to our county, our state, our nation and our world. The ‘Shaping the Future' campaign has strengthened the partnerships we share with an ever-increasing number of Orange County citizens, community leaders and businesses, all of whom demonstrate their belief in UC Irvine's mission through their generosity, advocacy and engagement."
A major initiative within the "Shaping the Future" campaign is under way to secure even more scholarship and fellowship support for UC Irvine students, said Daniel G. Aldrich III, interim vice chancellor for University Advancement.
"It's especially pleasing to highlight that nearly 2,700 undergraduate scholarships and more than 350 graduate fellowships have been funded through the campaign thus far," he said, "but we're not ending our efforts there. In addition, we're raising more money than ever for faculty endowed chairs, which aid the university in attracting many of the finest thought leaders in the world. There have been 30 endowed chairs established during the campaign, bringing the total to 97, each of which serves to propel the quality of education at what has become one of the nation's top public universities."
For more information about "Shaping the Future," visit www.UCIFuture.com.
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UC Irvine is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's largest employer, UC Irvine contributes an annual economic impact of $4.2 billion. For more news, visit www.today.uci.edu.