Bringing it All Together- Creative Philanthropy

Greetings Readers

Over the past few weeks I've been examining the various sources I've acquired which pertain to philanthropic history of each research university of focus. This has been a bitter-sweet process due to vast range of private funding each university has received. Funding not only goes to the universities themselves, but also towards specific areas of either curriculum or infrastructure. One of the key questions I had at the beginning of the semester was how philanthropy effected each major research university that Biz Ed will focus on. Through examining various private gifts and examining their effect on each university, I've found a multitude of names, organizations, effects, and financial figures. However, certain instances of philanthropic acts stand out as particularly innovative.

The Moorehead Foundation's impact on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill serves as a perfect example of how a moderate gift (monetarily speaking) can make a tremendous impact. John Motley Moorehead III headed the foundation and his primary mission was developing the institution in any way shape or form. Several of his donations lead to the physical growth of the university- including the construction of a planetarium in 1949. However, his most significant contribution was the development of the Moorehead Scholarship Program in 1951, which was the first undergraduate scholarship program (applicable to non-athletes) at a public institution. This program caused the university's enrollment figures to skyrocket, which transformed the campus and student body to an incredible degree.

Arizona State University was the very first public university to develop an honors college of its kind. Barrett College was innovative in that it had its own residence halls (in addition to its independent faculty, administration, and facilities). In essence it was a university within a university. It was founded by the then CEO of Intel Craig Barrett, who firmly believed that honors programs could only develop to their maxim if they had their own distinct cutting edge facilities and technology. A crucial aspect of this was the development of residence halls which exclusively held students that were enrolled in ASU's Barrett College. Barrett felt that having a common living space for the honors students would foster an environment of intellectual interaction. In order to actualize this idea- he engaged in a public-private partnership with the American Campus Communities organization. This was a bold move due to the fact that this 140 million dollar plan was developed in the mid 1980s during an economic recession. Barrett himself donated ten million dollars to the development of the honors college. The Barrett Honors College of Arizona State University was established in 1988 and was the largest and most sophisticated honors college of its time. To this day it remains a national standard.

These two instances epitomize how philanthropy can have a profound effect by creative thinking (rather than simply a certain sum of money). The Barrett College example illustrates a clear and definite sense of adaptability- an enormous sum of money was required to fund such a project and it was a resounding success. America was in the midst of a recession, and reshaping/creating a world renown institution that fosters intellectual progress epitomizes one of the key motives of philanthropy- progressing society.