Torchbearer: Spring 1998

Over The Top

UT's 21st Century Campaign has raised $360 million–$110 million over its original goal–and it's not over yet.

Until the closing date on June 30, campaign volunteers and staff are focusing on a phone solicitation of alumni. Gifts to the campaign are being used to provide scholarships, recruit and keep outstanding faculty, and improve academic programs.

Staff and volunteers will call as many of UT's more than 230,000 alumni as possible before the campaign ends.
"This is the 'friend-raising' phase," says President Joe Johnson. "While we will probably receive some additional gifts from businesses and corporations, our focus now is to reach our alumni and friends."

More than 90,000 individuals and firms have made gifts or pledges. Funds endowed for UT will total more than $500 million when the campaign ends.

"A major goal of this effort was to increase our endowment," Johnson said. "Partly as a result of the 21st Century Campaign, the University of Tennessee will be among the top public universities in the South in endowed funds."

National campaign chair William B. Stokely III says the campaign has averaged about $1.5 million per week in gifts and pledges so far. In one 10-day period last summer, the university received $10 million in gifts and pledges. Sixty-nine gifts and pledges of more than $1 million have been received.

UT Knoxville has raised $201 million so far as its part of the university-wide campaign, $26 million over its goal.

Some of the recent major gifts that contributed to the success of the 21st Century Campaign include:

$3.4 million worth of research equipment from the Exxon Chemical Company to the Textiles and Nonwovens Development Center (TANDEC). The equipment enables researchers to develop new fabrics using spunbond and meltblown techniques. Both processes melt tiny plastic pellets into fibers that are used to make weblike, nonwoven fabrics for such uses as filters, hospital gowns, and disposable diapers. TANDEC is part of the College of Human Ecology.
$500,000 for population studies-$250,000 from J. Harrison ('34) and Robbie Livingston of Knoxville and a $250,000 matching gift from the National Geographic Society Foundation. An endowment established by the gifts will fund joint projects between university geographers and K-12 teachers. The gift is to the geography department in the College of Arts and Sciences.
$25,000 to departments in engineering and arts and sciences from the Exxon Foundation. The money will be used for equipment and special programs in the College of Engineering's chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical and aerospace engineering departments and the geological science department in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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