I was excited to see the formal launch of MSU’s comprehensive fundraising campaign this month. The campaign began with presentations at Winter University on March 1, the annual event held in Florida for MSU alumni and friends, and it came into full bloom a week later at the three-day campaign launch. I had the opportunity to attend Winter University this year as well as the following weekend’s launch events. They were joyous and forward-looking, and they made me very proud to be a Spartan. Alumni, faculty and staff, students, and academic leaders joined together to celebrate MSU’s capacity to improve the lives of individuals, their families, and their communities and to seek ways to extend the influence of all that great work.
MSU’s last comprehensive campaign produced the tagline “Spartans Will,” which has worked its way very deeply into the language and thinking across campus. The new campaign leverages Spartans Will and adds a second assertion: “Uncommon Will. Far Better World.” The campaign has set the ambitious goal of raising $4 billion, which will nearly double the size of MSU’s endowment. About half of that goal will be invested into student success on campus.
As part of the campaign launch, I was invited to present to three-dozen donors who have heeded President Guskiewicz’s call to serve as campaign leaders. I was asked to discuss with them MSU’s vision for student success and how it reflected the campaign’s theme of “far better world.” I left that conversation even more optimistic about MSU’s future. The donor-leaders I met throughout the weekend were ardent supporters of our strengths-based approach to student success and were so genuinely appreciative of our turn away from the traditional student-deficit model for student success.
Over the coming months and years, we will all have the opportunity to shape and advance this campaign. When we meet our fundraising goals, we will have the resources to continue to reshape MSU into a model for student success. Meeting that goal will require all of us to tell our stories about how we have taken up this work, and it will require us to be more visible than ever in asserting our deeply held believe that every student who comes to Michigan State University is supported to learn, thrive and graduate.
To discover ways you can make a difference in student success, contact Madison Dugan, senior director of development of the Student Success Development Office, at duganmm@msu.edu or (248) 229-5845.