The WSU Foundation is created as a “separate foundation of a charitable and educational nature, organized exclusively to serve the needs of WSU and manage the private support given it.” By 2015, the Foundation will have raised over 1.3 billion dollars.
Chris Bruce, the director for Washington State University’s museum of art, travels to Seattle in late February to help sort out the disposition of the one of the most significant art donations in Washington State history – that of Safeco Insurance’s gift of more than 800 artworks.
WSU received nearly $156 million in new research grant awards during the 2007-08 fiscal year, up about 16 percent from the previous year.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grants WSU $25 million to help construct the $35 million building that will become the centerpiece in the WSU School for Global Animal Health. This is the largest grant in the history of WSU.
Early in 2005, students, faculty, and staff participated in relief efforts for Asian countries struck by a tsunami. Later, efforts took place for victims of two hurricanes which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast. WSU admitted some students displaced by the hurricanes and more than 7,000 Backpacks for Hope, filled with school supplies, were collected for school students in the affected areas.
As part of WSU’s commitment to supporting Pullman, the WSU Foundation moved its offices from campus to downtown’s new Pullman Town Centre. The Foundation raised more than $48.5 million, the second highest fund-raising total in its history.
Campaign WSU passes $200 million mark eight months before its scheduled end. In 1997 the seven-year Campaign WSU, the university’s first comprehensive fundraising effort, concluded with final total of $275.4 million, surpassing its original $250 million goal. Supporting WSU’s vision to be one of the top public universities in the nation, the money raised benefited scholarships, teaching and research programs, student programs, and learning initiatives statewide.
The Golden Grads of 1945 donated a grand piano to WSU as a class gift. It was dedicated during a concert in the Rotunda of the Terrell Library.
The Boeing Company donated $7 million to WSU- the largest private gift to date.
In the ’91-’92 fiscal year, donors gifted WSU with a then-record $33 million in grants and gifts. This is up from the previous year’s record of $26 million, and it would in turn be topped the following year when that year’s gifts tallied $45 million.
From student to philanthropic leader, Connie Kravas (’74), doctoral graduate in education administration and supervision, becomes director of development. In 1980, she was named executive director of development and WSU Foundation president. She became University Advancement vice president in 1997, after leading the highly successful Campaign WSU, the university’s first comprehensive fund-raising effort. Over a seven-year period, ending in 1997, Campaign WSU raised more than $275 million. It increased the university’s scholarship endowment, established endowed professorships to attract and retain top faculty, and provided modern equipment for teaching and research.
The Washington State University Foundation is created to “promote, accept, and maximize private support for programs, initiatives, and properties of Washington State University and its regional campuses” as well as manage, invest and steward the assets entrusted to it by WSU and alumni, friends, and donors.
By 1987, private giving to the university through WSU Foundation surpassed $9 million. Major gifts included Distinguished Professorships from the Kennedy family of Seattle and from five high-tech companies; $1 million from the Boeing Company and $1 million in computer equipment from AT&T.
Regent Michael Dederer becomes Board of Regents President for a third time. Dederer, a Seattle philanthropist and president of the Seattle Fur Exchange, was originally appointed in 1955 to fill the unexpired term of John C. Scott, who resigned. Dederer started as a janitor at the Seattle Fur Exchange in 1922, and just 17 years later was president of a rapidly growing fur empire. In public service, Dederer not only served as first member, then president of the WSU Board of Regents, but he was also a regent for Pacific Lutheran University and headed the WSU Foundation. Dederer died on June 24, 1995.
Nearly 14 years after his death, President Holland’s final estate of $410,000 was gifted to WSU. Two weeks later, the John I. and Orpha Preissner estate of $300,000 is also gifted to the school.
WSU launches the largest fundraising effort in its history: a $1 billion effort designed to confirm WSU as a leading land grant institution.
The Board of Regents selects V. Lane Rawlins to serve as the ninth president of WSU. He took office after serving as the president at University of Memphis. Rawlins was the first WSU faculty member to become president. He joined the economics faculty in 1968, later served as chair of the department of economics, and was WSU vice provost from 1982-86.
President Rawlins’ administration is best known for strengthening the WSU-UW relationship, giving the WSU branch campuses more autonomy, establishing December commencement, and Academic Showcase. He served as president until June 2007.
WSU wins a friendly fundraising competition with the University of Washington. As a result, Seattle’s Space Needle roof got a crimson and gray paint job.
Fire consumed half of the wooden bleachers at Rogers Field, along with the football and track and field facility. The fire was later determined to be arson. In 1971, $1 million was raised in three months to rebuild the football stadium, which was completed and dedicated in 1972 for former governor Clarence D. Martin.
In November of 1893, Board of Regents chair Charles R. Conner persuades the state and others to donate their exhibits from the Chicago World’s Fair to the fledgling Washington Agricultural College. In 1914, the museum is officially named after Conner. As the collection evolves in the following years it focuses on vertebrate mammals. Now housed in Abelson Hall, the Conner Museum displays 700 specimens, with more than 65,000 in its research library.
