While there are more than 5,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. today, only a handful of these - the nation's truly great public and private research-intensive universities - have the ability to dramatically change the face of their regions, the nation, and the world. The University of Washington is one of these. In the most recent Academic Ranking of World Universities conducted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 19 of the world's top 25 universities (500 universities, in total, were ranked) were in the United States. Eight of these nineteen were public. Four of the eight were in the State of California: Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and UCSF (the graduate-level health sciences campus of the University of California). The other four were the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Illinois.
Today, the nation's great public universities and the nation's great private universities are far more similar than they are different. They compete aggressively with one another for the best faculty, the best students, the best discoveries, the best educational programs, and the greatest impact. This competition is what keeps them at the forefront. Today, the University of Washington and the other great public universities are distinguished from their private brethren not by their public funding (which in most cases represents less than 10% of total funding, and is rapidly decreasing), but rather by their steadfast commitment not just to the nation and to the world, but to their regions.
UW CSE lives this mission. Private support is essential.
In October 2003 we dedicated the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. Through a campaign co-chaired by Tom Alberg (Madrona Venture Group) and Jeremy Jaech (Aldus, Visio, Trumba, and Verdiem), more than 200 donors contributed a total of more than $40 million to make the Allen Center a reality, including 10 donors at levels of $1 million and above, an additional 25 donors at levels of $100,000 and above, and 50 more at levels of $25,000 and above.
Since then, 50 named endowments have been created for student and faculty support, totaling more than $25 million. Like the Allen Center, endowments are forever: we are able to draw roughly 4% per year (roughly $1 million in total annually) to support students and faculty; appreciation beyond this is re-invested to grow the principal.
Finally, hundreds of gifts each year to the CSE Annual Fund provide critical immediate support for a wide range of activities.
Every gift matters! The only way that we can maintain a top-tier program is through the generosity of many hundreds of alumni, friends, and corporations.
