Daily Bulletin

Endowments: 'a major issue'

The next campaign Gifts for UW's endowment will be a feature of the university's next major fund-raising campaign, but vice-president (university relations) Ian Lithgow (pictured at right) says he doesn't know "how big a priority" endowments will get. Senior officials are just beginning to talk about the needs the next campaign will try to address, he says, and deans will be consulting their faculty members over the coming months. Once the needs are established, there will be talk about which ones can best be met using endowments. "We won't go public with the campaign for at least a couple of years," says Lithgow, although quiet preliminary asking will start well ahead of time. A typical campaign starts with two years of quiet work followed by a five-year "public" phase. And how big will the campaign goal be? Big, says the vice-president. A number hasn't been set yet, but he expects it to be far bigger than the $87 million raised by Campaign Waterloo in 1992-97.

"A major issue for this institution is the paucity of our endowments," says Ian Lithgow, vice-president (university relations), who says endowment funds are a fund-raiser's favourite kind of money. Why? Because they only have to be raised once, but they benefit an institution year after year forever, as the interest on the money is spent.

UW's endowment funds have reached a total of just less than $39 million, according to the last annual financial statement. By contrast, Toronto has been celebrating an endowment fund that just passed $1 billion -- and Harvard University has more than $10 billion (US) in the bank. Even York University has more than $70 million.

Why is Waterloo far behind? Lithgow cites several factors:

• "Medicine seems to attract a fair amount of endowment funding," and UW doesn't have a medical school or affiliated hospitals. Many of the "endowed chairs" supported by U of T's endowment are in medical fields.
• It takes time, not just to raise endowment funds and watch them grow in the bank tax-free, but to raise a large, supportive group of alumni who are at the stage of life when they can make big gifts. Harvard is 363 years old, Toronto is 172, Waterloo is 42.
• The Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Fund, with its program of government matching for scholarship endowments, came at a bad time for UW -- Campaign Waterloo was just ending. York, by contrast, had a campaign in full sail, and raised some $30 million in OSOTF endowments.
• UW hasn't made endowment funds a priority in its fund-raising. "We have brought in probably more money than York, but we have been spending it," says Lithgow. Even when "chairs" are being created in a specific academic field, UW has generally used the "industrial research chairs" program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, which provides funding for a few years. "You spend the donor's money every year and it's matched by NSERC."

There's going to be much more of that kind of thing, Lithgow predicts. He's foreseeing some "eight-figure gifts" to UW in the next few years, and while some of that money will be for buildings or for current spending, some of it will surely go into endowments. "It's nice to build a portion of endowment into every 'ask' you make," says the university's chief fund-raiser. "Once I get them endowed, I've got that money forever, I've got that income stream forever!"

Funds for electronic libraries

The grant is coming from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation for the Canadian National Site Licensing Project. Says CARL: "A national consortium of 64 Canadian universities will negotiate with journal publishers and vendors to obtain pan-Canadian site licenses for electronic versions of scholarly journals mostly in scientific disciplines."

"To remain internationally competitive, Canadian researchers require speedy and convenient access to the primary scientific, engineering, health, and environment research literature," said Howard Leper, vice-rector (research) at the University of Ottawa, who heads the CNSLP steering committee. And CARL president Frances Groen called the three-year grant "wonderful news. . . . Canada's researchers will benefit immeasurably from this national initiative. Now researchers across the country will enjoy equal access to research literature and findings."

Libraries are moving rapidly into electronic "journals" and other on-line resources as an alternative to printed materials -- thanks in part to "a decade of double-digit price increases from publishers, proliferation of publications and rapid technological innovation in electronic publishing", CARL says. "The use of information technology is accelerating the pace of the entire research cycle. There is a growing shift from the distribution of research results in print format to its rapid dissemination through electronic networks.

"Increasingly, libraries no longer purchase individual journal titles in print format. Instead they enter into license agreements with publishers or vendors to gain access to journal collections via electronic means. This is called site licensing. In recent years, Canadian libraries have entered into site licensing arrangements at the provincial and regional levels. The strategy worldwide, however, is toward national site licensing."

The $20 million from CFI will cover about 40 per cent of the cost of the national project in this country, with another $30 million coming from regional or provincial partners and the 64 institutions.

The grant for library materials was part of $226 million in grants announced by CFI, under various categories, at the end of June. None of the projects funded this time round were specifically from Waterloo.

Students win Finnish contest

Nadja Lawrence and Senzeni Steingruber worked on the competition during a term in Helsinki with Pekka Helin of the firm Helin and Siitonen, said Rick Haldenby, director of the UW school of architecture.

"The competition was open to all architects in the European Union," he said. "From hundreds of entries, their team was also ranked first of eight schemes selected in the design phase earlier this year."

Haldenby said the site was "controversial, as it is one of the few green spaces remaining in the downtown area, but discussion is going on considering having the project built." The students will receive a cash prize.

Other notes and events

Plan ahead: the Employee Assistance Program will offer a noon-hour session next Wednesday, July 21, on "Assertive Communications". The speaker is Michele Keens, "of Michele Keens and Associates", who says, "This workshop focuses on how to increase effectiveness by developing assertive communication skills. Develop skills that will inspire greater confidence to manage in today's world. The presentation identifies and examines three response styles -- non-assertive, assertive and aggressive -- and shows when and how to use them." The July 21 event will be held in Davis Centre room 1304.

Here's a reminder that Student Life 101 will be taking place August 9. It's the annual pre-September event for new students, and "approximately 3,000 students and family" are likely to be here, organizers say. They'll get tours, opportunities to find out about courses and student services, and presentations on "why life at Waterloo is so great!" Many volunteers to help with the day are wanted; anybody interested can get in touch with Pam Charbonneau, first-year student life coordinator in the student services office, phone ext. 6876.

Also looking ahead -- UW and a number of other univearsities will have a special presence August 19 at "Bordeaux Wines Alumni Night" during the du Maurier Open tennis champioinships in Toronto. The evening costs $23, including a wine-and-cheese reception, a reserved "green seat" for the tennis, and even free parking. Tickets are available from Tennis Canada at (416) 665-9777 ext. 306, no later than July 30.

I've been mentioning new department chairs as I become aware of them, and here's word of another one whose term began July 1. Ashok Kapur becomes chair of the department of political science, succeeding Terry Downey, who's off to Alberta.

A correction to Friday's Bulletin: Bev Brookes writes to point out that she's a Brookes, not a Brooks, and that she doesn't work for the kinesiology department. She's based in UW's Centre for Applied Health Research, which is a co-sponsor (as is the kin department) of the posture and gait conference being held here this week.

. . . And, I'm going to be away from campus for a few days; in my absence, Barbara Elve (bmelve@uwaterloo.ca) will be writing the Daily Bulletin.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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