Seniors in the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business are making an effort to gather as a class and leave behind a legacy of support for those who come after them.
Students have been soliciting donations to make a “Senior Salute” — a gift of a copy machine to be placed in the undergraduate student lounge of Gilbert Hall, said Steve Zogas, a member of the Undergraduate Senior Class Gift Committee.
The main objective of the gift, Zogas said, “was to build some class unity.”
Shannon Dolan, a senior accounting major and member of the committee, said that with the gift, they are “trying to establish a sense that we are the class of 2000.”
This is the first year that undergraduates have given a senior class gift in what Michael McKelvey, business school director of development, called “the modern era of fund raising.”
He said that since the end of the University’s wildly successful Oregon Campaign, which raised more than $250 million between 1992 and 1998, University fund raising has changed.
“The capital campaign reset the tone for fund raising and gave the University a tremendous amount of confidence,” McKelvey said.
MBA students have given gifts to the business school for the last three years. This year, participation in the giving program is nearing 40 percent.
The percentage of participation is a key factor in fund raising, McKelvey said.
“It shows a sign of confidence and trust and belief in the education they received,” McKelvey said. Seniors who participate in gift-giving at the end of their undergraduate careers tend to continue to donate to the University during the early part of their professional careers.
“We’re trying to build relationships that will last,” he said.
The students behind the Senior Salute were approached by the business school’s Office of Development and External Affairs, the department in charge of fund raising, Dolan said.
Many other universities, such as Washington State University, also have senior gift programs. WSU has the highest participation percentage of any public institution in the nation — 34 percent, McKelvey said.
There is a drive to establish that kind of participation on this campus.
The business school is currently at about 14 percent participation, but its goal is to increase that number toward 20 percent and beyond, McKelvey said.
“We’re growing the participation level each year,” he said.
The Senior Salute program has been met with “a broad base of responses,” Zogas said. “Some were all for it and others didn’t really care.”
As many as 40 students out of approximately 400 seniors have donated to the program thus far, Dolan said.
“Forty gifts is okay, but we were hoping for more,” she said.
The students will be collecting donations today and Friday at booths in the courtyard in front of Gilbert Hall and in the Earle A. Chiles Business Center. Mugs, T-shirts and stickers bearing the business school’s logo and “class of 2000” were ordered as thank-you gifts to donors.