BYU Announces $100 Million Goal

Brigham Young University’s President Jeffrey R. Holland took the occasion of BYU’s annual Homecoming and President’s Club Banquet to announce publicly “what we have been privately working on for more than a year—a $100 million capital campaign entitled ‘Excellence in the Eighties: The BYU Campaign for Academic Achievement.’”

President Holland explained that “over a five-year period, the first of which is nearly over, we intend to add $100 million to the resources of Brigham Young University in our pursuit of the moral and academic achievement becoming a university sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

He indicated that “even in this very depressed economic time,” the university has received nearly $15 million since work on the project began just over a year ago. Allocation of the $100 million, according to President Holland, will be as follows:

“$25 million is needed for the faculty”—to provide endowed chairs, establish visiting professorships, and encourage in-service faculty growth.

“$15 million is needed for students”—our other great area of concern. Out of BYU are coming young men and women who have a deep spiritual commitment, a sense of direction, a willingness to look beyond the hills just ahead. But their education isn’t free. More money is needed for endowed scholarships and grants.”

$55 million will be funded for university programs to support faculty and student goals—“programs that range across the entire spectrum of our educational offering from art to zoology, programs that enhance learning and lift our view of human life.”

$5 million will be used to take BYU’s message to the world. “We need to publish and distribute our best manuscripts, develop curriculum that can be administered beyond the borders of the campus, send our performing groups literally around the world, and use improved techniques and technology to tell the BYU story over land and sea.”

The university’s Board of Trustees, said President Holland, provides a maintenance budget for the university; any “qualitive improvements,” however, will be largely dependent upon the school’s own development efforts. “We are determined,” he said, “to fulfill our prophetic destiny of becoming ‘among the greatest universities in the world.’”

President Holland emphasized that “the Board of Trustees has felt to endorse this campaign and to encourage all individuals and organizations who are in a position to do so to give their financial support.”

Those wishing to receive additional information about the campaign should contact the Development Office, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602.