President John L. Hennessy unveiled “The Stanford Challenge” yesterday, a five-year, $4.3 billion fundraising campaign aimed at three broad areas: seeking solutions to pressing global problems, educating students to become effective leaders and sustaining a foundation of excellence.

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Mike Ramm

Meeting with Trustees Chair Burt McMurtry

“A lot of universities undertake campaigns, but they are often ‘more of the same,’” said University Trustee Chairman Burton McMurtry. “We’ll continue to do what we do, but we’ll also build on our strengths and focus our resources on four areas through this highly multidisciplinary initiative.”

According to McMurtry, the comprehensive Challenge will channel resources into four primary initiatives, including human health care, international relations, environment and sustainability and the arts. The University will also allocate funds to improve both graduate and undergraduate education at Stanford. McMurtry said he was especially pleased with the University’s renewed commitment to promoting the arts and creativity.

“Historically, Stanford has invested [less] in the arts than in other parts of the University,” McMurtry said. “Our students could benefit from this across-the-board initiative.”

The ambitious University-wide effort was unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees and will focus on multidisciplinary research and teaching initiatives.

In a University press release, Hennessy discussed the campaign’s goal of enabling Stanford to address complex social and scientific challenges.

“Stanford is uniquely prepared among universities — by its breadth of scholarship, entrepreneurial heritage and pioneering faculty — to provide research and real-world approaches to address many of these issues,” he said.

The Stanford Challenge will emphasize collaboration among Stanford’s many departments, centers and institutes, administrators say.

“Stanford has a very strong tradition of working across the disciplines and being a nimble, collaborative and entrepreneurial institution,” said Martin Shell, vice president of development, in an email to The Daily. “Stanford also has a rich tradition of a pioneering culture that spans directly back to the vision of Jane and Leland Stanford when they founded the University. A major goal of The Stanford Challenge is to build upon those traditions and address the issues and opportunities facing humankind in this new century.”

The first component of the campaign seeks $1.4 billion to support potentially transformative multidisciplinary initiatives, including the three recently launched to address global challenges. These initiatives include the Initiative on Human Health, the Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability, and the International Initiative.

The campaign’s goal of preparing students to be effective leaders in the 21st century will be achieved through a $1.175 billion effort. Stanford will look to implement innovative academic and extracurricular programs focused on improving K-12 education, exploring new ways to engage students in the creative arts, and further enhancing undergraduate and graduate education. This will include increasing undergraduate and graduate financial aid, particularly through need-based scholarships for international undergraduates and loan repayment assistance for graduate students who pursue public interest work.

The final piece of the campaign strives to raise $1.725 billion to uphold Stanford’s excellence in both teaching and research. It will achieve this goal by increasing both University-wide annual giving as well as support for faculty and students.

This component, Shell said, “aims to ensure that we continue to have the core strengths — support for faculty and students — that are necessary in order to do the multidisciplinary work that is the focus of the other two components.”

Stanford was the first university to raise $1 billion with the Centennial Campaign, completed in 1992, as well as the first to raise $1 billion exclusively for undergraduate education, accomplished in 2005 with the Campaign for Undergraduate Education. While Shell acknowledged that The Stanford Challenge’s financial goal is bold, he was confident that this campaign would also end in success.

“We have compelling ideas and strong leadership, starting with John Hennessy, whose vision for Stanford is embodied in this campaign, and in the incredible work that our faculty and students are doing in the laboratory and classroom,” Shell said. “Our success to date also is directly tied to the world of our enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers.”

According to Hennessy, early gifts to the campaign total almost $2.19 billion.

Examining the big picture, McMurtry shared Shell’s enthusiasm for the project. “If universities don’t step up and try to solve some of the world’s big problems,” he said, “I think we’ll have wasted our charter.”