Historic Rensselaer Capital Campaign Reaches Goal Nine Months Ahead of Schedule

$1.4 billion campaign goal reached just days before EMPAC grand opening

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today announced that it has surpassed the $1.4 billion Renaissance at Rensselaer capital campaign goal. The announcement comes nine months in advance of the campaign’s target end date of June 30, 2009, and just days before the opening of the new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), launched under President Shirley Ann Jackson’s ambitious Rensselaer Plan.

“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, the campaign co-chairs, and the entire Rensselaer leadership team, I would like to express my deepest, heartfelt gratitude to all of our donors and to the members of the Rensselaer community who have worked so diligently to help achieve this unprecedented milestone in our Institute’s history,” President Jackson said. “The campaign was launched to support the achievement of The Rensselaer Plan, our bold blueprint for the future, which is transforming Rensselaer into one of the finest research universities in the world. As we prepare for the grand opening of EMPAC on October 3, we begin a new era at Rensselaer — an era marked by renewed optimism for a future of great promise for the Institute.”

Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was kicked off in the “quiet phase” on Sept. 1, 2000, and formally launched in the public phase on July 1, 2004. The campaign fuels the Institute’s strategic Rensselaer Plan, and supports groundbreaking interdisciplinary programs which have at their core the technologies driving innovations in the 21st century: biotechnology, nanotechnology, computational information technology, energy and the environment, and experimental media and the arts. The campaign aims to build the Institute unrestricted endowment, and also seeks funds for endowed scholarships and fellowships, faculty positions, curriculum support, student life programs, and athletics programs and facilities.

Highlights of the campaign include:

• An anonymous, unrestricted gift of $360 million in March 2001, the largest gift ever to any public or private university in the United States at the time.
  
  
• An unrestricted gift of $40 million in September 2004 from Rensselaer alumnus and Trustee Curtis R. Priem ’82.
  
  
• A $514 million in-kind contribution of software from PACE (Partners for the Advancement of Engineering Education), a philanthropic initiative of General Motors, EDS, Sun Microsystems, and UGS Corporation.

“In combination with the generosity of many others, these unprecedented gifts have enhanced the student experience, extended our research enterprise, attracted world-renowned faculty, increased applications to an all-time high, expanded the number of scholarships and fellowships available to students, and further strengthened entrepreneurship across the curriculum,” said President Jackson. “While our official goal has been met, the campaign will continue until June 30, 2009, to support our ongoing efforts to create one of the finest living and learning communities in the world.”

A Video Message from President Shirley Ann Jackson

Contact: Gabrielle DeMarco
Phone: (518) 276-6542
E-mail: demarg@rpi.edu