PRIVATE GIFTS TO FACULTY ENDOWMENTS THIS YEAR INCREASE OU’S PRIVATE SUPPORT
TO $273 MILLION

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rt/7-2-08

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: OU Public Affairs, (405) 325-1701

NORMAN – Private gifts this year to the University of Oklahoma – cash, pledges and bequests – are expected to total over $273 million. The total includes $167 million in endowments, including $61 million contributed by 80 donors in the two month-period beginning May 1 during the closing days of the State Regents Endowment Program one-to-one match for privately endowed faculty positions, OU President David L. Boren said today.

The gifts completed the private support for 127 fully funded different faculty positions on all three campuses and added 20 new endowed chairs and professorships, bringing the total number of OU faculty endowments to 539. OU now has $163.8 million in private gifts to chairs and professorships eligible to be matched through the State Regents program. With $47 million designated in the recently passed Legislative bond issue, that leaves almost $117 million still to be matched.

“I have been thrilled and humbled by the response of our alumni and friends, so many of whom stepped up to quickly and generously complete existing commitments and, also, to establish entirely new chairs and professorships,” Boren said, noting that OU’s donor base has grown from 18,000 to 108,000 in the past 14 years. “It has truly been an unprecedented period for faculty support at OU that will enrich our research, teaching, and outreach programs for many generations.”

What Boren calls one of the most remarkable periods of private giving in OU history was prompted by the Legislature’s changes to the longtime state program that matched private gifts to endowed faculty positions dollar-for-dollar. A moratorium on the program went into effect July 1 and will continue until all positions are matched. Thereafter, the matching amount decreases significantly.

Because private commitments to faculty endowments are typically in the $500,000 to $2 million range, most donors had planned to complete their commitments over a period of years, Boren noted.

“In May, we called on donors to encourage them to complete their commitments by the deadline if they wanted the gift to be fully matched,” Boren said. “This was an extraordinary request, and I had no idea what we could realistically expect, especially because many of our donors have other significant philanthropic commitments.”