[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 13876-13877] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]RECOGNIZING THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE CAPITAL CAMPAIGN FOR HOWARD UNIVERSITY ______ HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL of new york in the house of representatives Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my support and pride in the outstanding achievements of the historical $275 million Capital Campaign for Howard University. The president of the Howard University Pat Swygert and his Howard University Trustee Team achieved remarkable results by raising $275 million in a 5 year fund-raising campaign. The plan broke several records, including the most amount of money raised by an African- American institution and a record for Howard. These results were unthinkable without strong support of the alumnae, trustees and the involvement of the Congress. This year Congress contributed $204.3 million to Howard University and $28.9 million to Howard University Hospital. The money raised through the Capital Campaign greatly improved Howard University by establishing modern equipped computer labs, glass walled conference rooms, exhibition galleries and other necessary facilities for successful student education. Hundreds of scholarships helped many students to complete their education reducing the burden of student loans. Growing number of alumni donate to Howard, seeing the success and achievements of the University. President Pat Swygert and his campaign did the terrific work not only raising the impressive amount of money, but also improving Howard as well as raising the reputation and the respect of the school. (By Kathryn Masterson) Washington.--As a dental student 35 years ago, Leo E. Rouse and his Howard University classmates learned to fill cavities and cap teeth by crowding around one faculty member and angling for a clear view of the day's demonstration. Today students at Howard's College of Dentistry, where Dr. Rouse is now the dean, [[Page 13877]] get an unobstructed view of dental procedures from computer monitors mounted on 45 workstations in the school's new simulation laboratory. If they miss something, they can go back and review by watching DVDs in the lab or on their laptops. The $1.3-million lab, which was built with money from the university's recently completed capital campaign, does more than enhance the students' experience, Dr. Rouse says. It has helped bring in donations from alumni and almost doubled the number of applications for the school's 85 seat class, from about 1,400 before the lab was built to 2,710 last year. ``Word gets around,'' Dr. Rouse said. ``A school that has new stuff is attractive. `` After raising $275 million in its 5 year fund-raising campaign, the 11,000-student university has plenty of new stuff to show off. There's a simulated trading room in the School of Business, a van that travels around Washington to screen men for prostate cancer, an exhibition gallery in the architecture school, computer labs and glass-walled conference rooms in the health-science library, and almost 300 named scholarships. The campaign broke a record for Howard, whose trustees and officers first considered a more modest $100 million goal that the university president, H. Patrick Swygert, thought was too small. The effort also broke a record for the amount of money raised by an African-American institution. Thanks in part to those gifts, the university's endowment, which was $144 million when Mr. Swygert came in 1995, has swelled to $510 million, an amount that put Howard among the 136 wealthy institutions asked to tell the U.S. Senate Finance Committee how they spend their endowments. William F.L. Moses, a senior program director at the Kresge Foundation, says the ``path-breaking, benchmark-setting'' Howard campaign sets new expectations for how much money historically black institutions can raise. Kresge has supported programs to strengthen fund raising at historically black colleges and universities, giving $18 million in grants over 5 years to five institutions (Howard was not among them) and $8 million to the institutional-advancement program at the United Negro College Fund. ``It sets the bar, that this kind of success is possible and HBCU's can compete with mainstream institutions,'' Mr. Moses said. ``HBCU's can compete with the best.'' Alumni Make a Difference Howard's success was especially notable for how the university involved its alumni. Alumni giving has been a challenge for historically black colleges, said Elfred Anthony Pinkard, executive director for UNCF's Institute for Capacity Building, which helps member colleges with fund raising, enrollment, and other management challenges. (Howard is not a member of the UNCF.) The Institute for Capacity Building has given grants to historically black colleges to hire consultants and buy software programs to help advancement efforts. Alumni-affairs offices at the smaller institutions often have just one or two employees and giving rates for the colleges who work with the institute range from 7 percent to as high as 38 percent, Mr. Pinkard said. The national average is 12 percent, according to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education's 2007 Voluntary Support of Education survey. Ann E. Kaplan, director of the Council for Aid to Education's survey on giving, said historically black colleges tend to have less mature fund-raising operations that rely more on money from foundations and corporations than from alumni. When she spoke at a UNCF conference, Ms. Kaplan said, she heard from college leaders who were more focused on raising money for current operations than on long- term planning and faced challenges such as poorly kept alumni records or understaffed advancement offices. Though tithing to churches and giving to religious organizations are strong traditions among many African- Americans, the 19 historically black colleges that responded to the council's survey (a number Ms. Kaplan said was too small to be representative) had an average alumni-giving rate of 6 percent, half the overall national average. ``There's no reason to think HBCU's can't be as successful in raising money from their alumni, but they need to ask,'' Ms. Kaplan said. ``Asking is the No. 1 reason why people give.'' Mr. Swygert knew Howard wouldn't make its $250 million goal without significant alumni participation, but he also knew that the university needed to do some work before it approached them for money. A previous capital campaign had been started in the 1980s with a goal of $100 million but was never completed. At the start of Mr. Swygert's presidency, annual giving by alumni was at about 4 percent. As one of only two federally chartered universities, Howard receives direct appropriations from the federal government each year. Congress had noted the low alumni giving rate, and one of the first things lawmakers asked Mr. Swygert to do as university president was to increase it. A higher giving rate would provide evidence that Howard graduates valued the education they received and that Congress should continue to maintain its level of financial support for the institution. This year Congress gave Howard University $204.3 million and its hospital $28.9 million, according to the Department of Education. During the campaign, Howard's annual alumni-giving rate went as high as 20 percent, and it is now at 17 percent. The key to getting more alumni to give, Mr. Swygert said, was to re-engage them with Howard by showing them the university's key asset: its students. Howard ran ads in local and national newspapers featuring students and sent postcards to alumni introducing them to Howard's Rhodes, Marshall, and Fulbright scholars, as well as distinguished alumni. ``People give to students, they give to ideas, they give to memory,'' Mr. Swygert said. ``The idea of enabling a young person to go forth and do well is a very powerful notion.'' Howard hired Virgil E. Ecton, who raised more than $1.6 billion for UNCF in his 31-year career there, to run the campaign. As vice president for university advancement, Mr. Ecton oversaw upgrades to Howard's Web site, alumni magazine, and advancement office. Alumni records were improved, and the database of Howard graduates grew from 30,000 entries to more than 60,000. Backing a Winner Early on, trustees helped create momentum for the campaign with several large gifts. Frank Savage, an alumnus, chairman emeritus of the board, and chief executive of Savage Holdings LLC, an international financial-services company, announced he was giving $5 million to the campaign. Richard D. Parsons, a trustee who led the campaign and is chairman of Time Warner, gave more than $1 million. James E. Silcott, a Los Angeles architect, alumnus, and trustee, gave $3 million. Mr. Swygert, an alumnus, donated more than $2 million. ``That sent a clear signal to trustees, the giving community, and the community [at large] that we were serious about this campaign,'' Mr. Ecton said. Mr. Ecton, Mr. Swygert, and trustees went on the road, appearing at a series of alumni events around the country. At the events, which drew up to 1,000 people in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Houston, and other cities, alumni would get up and pledge their support to the university, and the events began to take on a competitive spirit, Mr. Ecton said. One alumnus in Philadelphia pledged $1 million, the Miami event raised $8 million, and the New York event, held at the new headquarters of Time Warner, resulted in between $25 million and $30 million in pledges, he said. ``People like to be associated with a winner,'' Mr. Ecton said. ``It was clear we were winning.'' At the end of the campaign, 33 percent of the money raised was from Howard alumni. Nationally, in 2007, alumni giving was 27.8 percent of total private giving, according to the Voluntary Support of Education survey. One student who benefited directly from the money raised was Raquel SK Thompson, who graduated from Howard in May with a degree in architecture and received a trustees' scholarship during her last two years. The scholarship, which was backed by money raised during the campaign, covered half her tuition. The money was a great help, said Ms. Thompson, who is from Barbados and wanted to attend a historically black college. The financial pressures of tuition, an unfavorable exchange rate, the cost of materials for her architecture classes, and restrictions on working off the campus were difficult for her and her parents, Ms. Thompson said, and without assistance she may have had to cut back on classes and work more on the campus in order to save money. ``It helped me finish school,'' said Ms. Thompson, who is now looking for a job in Washington or New York. Without the money, ``I definitely think I would have been there another year,'' she said. Both Mr. Swygert and Mr. Ecton say Howard should tap more alumni for larger donations in its next campaign. Fifty-one alumni gave more than $1 million, and both officials think there is potential there to raise more. Mr. Swygert, who is retiring at the end of June, believes Howard's next campaign should have a goal of at least $1 billion. The top institutions have campaigns that size, and Mr. Swygert says Howard should be in that group. ``I think it's a necessity,'' Mr. Swygert said. ``It's a stretch, but $250 million was a stretch.'' ____________________