By KRWG News
Las Cruces – From NMSU:
New Mexico State University's Doing What Counts fundraising campaign has raised $210 million to date and continues to move toward its $225 million goal by December 2010.
The comprehensive campaign is the most ambitious fundraising endeavor undertaken by the university and has already exceeded expectations. The original goal of $150 million by December 2008 was met early in the effort causing the NMSU Foundation Board of Directors to revise the goal to $225 by December 2010.
"The money raised is helping NMSU achieve even higher levels of excellence," said Nick Franklin, vice president of university advancement and executive director of the NMSU Foundation. "The generous gifts we have received are the reason we continue to grow and transform NMSU."
The campaign was intended to fund academic chairs and professorships that support NMSU's outstanding faculty, to create additional scholarships to attract quality students and to establish funding for several capital projects including the Native American Cultural Center, which will soon be under construction, as well as the Center for the Arts and the Domenici Institute.
In the last five years gifts to the university have made it possible to establish more than a dozen chairs to support outstanding faculty and several hundred student scholarships.
As the campaign moves toward conclusion, the focus will include continued efforts to fund various projects across campus that support faculty and students as well as efforts to raise additional needed funding for the Center for the Arts and the Domenici Institute.
NMSU's Center for the Arts will gather the university's scattered arts programs in one central location, encouraging more collaborative activity and providing the community easier accessibility to the many creative endeavors on campus. It is intended to be a regional arts venue to serve all of southern New Mexico and west Texas.
Named for New Mexico's longest-serving senator, NMSU's Domenici Institute brings together some of the best minds in the country to focus on significant national issues. Among other activities, the institute hosts an annual public policy conference where leading policy makers discuss topics with a real impact on people across the country. This year's conference will be held Sept. 16 and 17 at the NMSU Corbett Center Student Union.
During the campaign, NMSU has discovered many friends and partners who have helped the university achieve its goals. To become an NMSU Partner in Excellence, visit http://giving.nmsu.edu/.