Shaping the Future

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UCI’s $1 billion Shaping the Future campaign
surpasses $600 million

Contributions fund new programs, facilities, scholarships, fellowships and chairs

— Irvine, Calif., April 18, 2011 —

With more than four years to go in the largest fundraising initiative in Orange County history, UC Irvine’s $1 billion campaign has surpassed the $600 million milestone.

Contributions to “Shaping the Future” – which is led by the UC Irvine Foundation board of trustees – are sparking discoveries in medicine, the environment and sustainable energy. They’re also enabling new economic and cultural opportunities and outreach around the globe while providing UCI students with the support they need to become the next generation of leaders.

Chancellor Michael Drake believes the campaign’s achievement is testament to the commitment and vision of UCI’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, UCI 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, UCI 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 Contemporary Arts Center, 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 UCI 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.”

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