For Immediate Release
SANTA CRUZ, CA--UC Santa Cruz raised a record $32.2 million from private donors in 2003-04, an increase of 42 percent over the $22.7 million raised the year before.
"This record level of support for UC Santa Cruz could not have come at a more critical time," said Acting Chancellor Martin M. Chemers. "It will be invaluable in building on campus achievements in cutting-edge research and undergraduate teaching."
The largest single contribution was a $17.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, part of a University of California-California Institute of Technology project to build the world's most powerful telescope. Known as the Thirty-Meter Telescope, it will provide images more than 12 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope and have nine times the light-gathering ability of one of the 10-meter Keck Telescopes, currently the largest in the world.
The largest gift ever for scholarships in UCSC's Baskin School of Engineering was made in memory of software engineer and alumna Amy Snader, who died in a hiking accident. The estate of Barbara Snader, Amy Snader's mother, donated $1 million to the Amy Beth Snader Memorial Scholarship Fund, established in 1997, to benefit women studying engineering.
The New Teacher Center's focus on programs for new teachers and administrators drew grants from many sources. Grants totaling $700,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and $587,408 from the Stupski Family Foundation were among the awards.
A long-term collaborative research project involving the study and monitoring of coastal ecosystems continued to receive funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The foundation augmented its original grant--involving four major universities in California and Oregon--with $1.1 million for UC Santa Cruz. Called the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), the project focuses on connections among the nearshore biological communities along 1,200 miles of coastline from southern California to Oregon.
"We raised $32 million this year due to the world-class excellence of our faculty and inspiration of our students, fueled by the leadership of Chancellor Greenwood, Acting Chancellor Chemers, and our deans," said Ronald P. Suduiko, vice chancellor of University Relations. "We will build upon this success."
Efforts to increase scholarship funding are already under way: The campus's first Scholarships Benefit Dinner in the fall of 2003 raised more than $500,000 to support undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.
Individual donors continued to provide crucial support in 2003-04. The Telephone Outreach Program raised a record $1.16 million from alumni and parents of students, and UC Santa Cruz Foundation trustees contributed $467,874. Alumni celebrating five-year through 35-year reunions raised more than $245,000 to support campus programs and the colleges, and the Alumni Association Scholarship Fund raised $109,130.
