• Home
• Campaign Case for Support
• Fundraising Priorities
• Student Scholarships
• Academic Enhancements
• Great Facilities
• Jesuit Catholic Identity
• The Seattle University Fund
• Campaign Progress
• Campaign News
• Ways to Give
• Leadership
• For More Information

Fundraising Priorities

Priority 1

Our Commitment to Scholarships for Talented and Deserving Students
Goal: $37 million

The Campaign for Seattle University will create permanent scholarship endowments across all schools, colleges and levels—from entering freshmen to graduate students. The campaign's success will make it possible to attract the brightest future leaders and those most committed to service in the Jesuit tradition. Success also will mean substantial, permanent support for the most gifted students and for those with the greatest need—recognizing the significance of both efforts to the community, our mission and our values.

A Genuine Need

One of Seattle University's proudest legacies is its tradition of helping talented, determined young people discover their potential, experience a personal and transforming education and go forward to accomplish great things. It is seen today in the lives of our graduates who have flourished in their careers, with their families and for the good of their communities.

The university works to serve and educate the community as it truly exists today. But Seattle University cannot shape its student body to reflect society's great strengths of difference and diversity without significant increases in scholarship endowment.

Our Top Priority

Many Seattle University students overcome significant obstacles, work exceptionally hard and come to flourish as a result of the individual attention, support and encouragement not available at many other institutions. This legacy of elevating hidden potential to high achievement is at the core of Seattle University's Jesuit mission.

Endowing student scholarships is the top priority of the Campaign for Seattle University. Priorities include:

• Opportunity Scholarships
• Sullivan Scholars
• Merit Scholars
• Graduate Scholarships
• International Development Internships

Priority #2

A Passion for Teaching and Learning: Academic Program Enhancements
Goal: $30.4 million

Outstanding teachers are Seattle University's greatest strength and most distinctive attribute. Ranked by The Princeton Review in the top five teaching faculties nationally, our professors don't just lecture; they invite and encourage thought-provoking conversations with their students. And, with a 14:1 student/teacher ratio, every Seattle University student has a meaningful voice in those conversations.

Performance and Prestige

Endowed chairs and professorships represent the best way for the university to attract and retain outstanding professors. These faculty members enhance the performance and prestige of individual programs and departments, strengthen other faculty endeavors and drive the quest for academic excellence across the entire university.

Our campaign seeks to create endowed chairs and professorships in the following areas:

• School of Law Faculty Endowments
• School of Nursing Chair and Endowed Professorships
• School of Science and Engineering Endowed Chair in Chemistry
• School of Theology and Ministry Endowed Professorships
• Albers School of Business Endowed Professorship in Accounting

Educational and Community Initiatives

Tying educational goals to community needs is a challenge—one that Seattle University is particularly well-positioned to meet. Our location (less than a mile from downtown Seattle), our comprehensive range of academic and co-curricular programs and our overriding focus on community outreach combine to create a university environment ready to respond to civic needs and priorities as they emerge.

Seattle is an international leader in high-tech innovation and enterprise, and Seattle University reflects the city's energy and synergy. The Educational Initiatives component of our campaign will allow us to expand and deepen our connections with multiple constituencies.

Priority programs included in this phase of the campaign include:

• The Albers Entrepreneurship Center
• Classroom Technology
• Seattle Nursing Project
• The Albers Center for Business Ethics
• School of Theology and Ministry Program Endowments and Outreach Initiatives
• Undergraduate Research Support
• College of Education New Principal Program
• Other School and College Initiatives

Priority #3

Great Facilities for Teaching and Learning
Goal: $63.5 million

Recent sweeping improvements to Seattle University facilities have transformed the pace and pleasure of daily campus life. Through the Campaign for Seattle University, we are renewing efforts to provide state-of-the-art facilities that provide a foundation for excellence.

Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons

With rapidly evolving changes in technology, as well as contemporary teaching/learning environments, a modern, comprehensive library complex is more critical to the needs of students and faculty than ever before.

The new Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons will serve as the university's "intellectual community square," a place where students can engage in lively team projects and challenging technological interactions unforeseen when the original facility was built in 1966. It will support both traditional and modern forms of study and research and provide a complex central to Seattle University's commitment to academic excellence.

Fitness Center

Fundamental to our Jesuit educational mission is a vital and engaged student life, one that supports the education of the whole person, inside and outside the classroom. The university has made important strides in these areas, but is hindered without a modern fitness center. All of that will change with the building of Seattle University's new Fitness Center, a facility that will enhance and support the academic environment and serve as a much-needed campus attraction.

Complexes like this are much more than exercise centers. Their impact on campus life, student spirit and community involvement is dramatic and far-reaching. They help boost recruitment and retention of those hard-working, high-achieving students who invariably view fitness as part of their well-rounded and disciplined educational regimen.

Lee Center For the Arts

Sited at the corner of 12th Avenue and East Marion Street on the eastern edge of campus, the Lee Center for the Performing Arts represents the first fully completed project of the Campaign for Seattle University. The striking new facility features a 150-seat, flexible space theatre; a 1,400-square-foot lobby cum art gallery visible to passers-by through towering glass windows facing 12th Avenue; back-of-house performing arts facilities, including scene and costume shops and prop, dressing and green rooms; and state-of-the-art lighting and sound technology.

The Lee Center for the Performing Arts, named for longtime Seattle University benefactors Jeanne Marie and Rhoady Lee, Jr., represents the university's first and only performance space designed for drama, dance and music. Already, the center is enhancing the university's thriving fine arts program in ways that benefit our students, our neighbors in the Central District and the city's larger arts community.

Pigott Auditorium Renovation

First impressions do count. At Seattle University, the first place students, parents, and new faculty and staff often gather is the venerable Pigott Auditorium. For campus visitors attending university lectures or workshops, the auditorium may be their single campus stopping place. After decades of frequent use (an average of four events a week for the past 50 years!), the facility was in dire need of a face lift.

The refurbishment of Pigott Auditorium in the Albers School of Business and Economics, completed in 2005 as part of phase one of the Campaign for Seattle University, stands as testament to the school's focus on community.

Championship Athletic Field

No school of its size in the nation dominates soccer like Seattle University. Our men are repeated NCAA Division II national champions. Our women regularly take Far West championship honors. Student, alumni, and community-fan enthusiasm continues to grow. The new Championship Field, completed in 2006, reflects the university's tradition of athletic excellence, makes us eligible to host national-level soccer matches, and provides much-needed and richly deserved support for our talented student athletes and dedicated coaches.

Priority #4

Our Jesuit Catholic Identity
Goal: $15.5 million

At Seattle University, we believe we must engage in a vigorous, purposeful and diligent effort to strengthen and preserve our Catholic character for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. We believe that our Catholic intellectual tradition nourishes all members of the campus community and is understood in this way by those of other faiths or belief systems.

Our students care passionately about the fate of the world. The men and women who come to Seattle University are looking for more than marketable professional skills. They chose to study with us because they will receive an excellent education and because they know they will be challenged to explore their deepest desires to respond to the complexities and suffering of our modern world. Whether they study business or nursing, literature or law, the questions they pursue at Seattle University will shape who they become and influence the contributions and choices they make in their personal and professional lives. We want to ensure that the Catholic Wisdom Tradition infuses that journey.

Faculty Fellows Program

This initiative will provide full academic year faculty fellowships for five tenured faculty members each year. These fellowships will enhance the intellectual climate on campus and strengthen the university's Catholic foundation by supporting faculty members as they investigate the nexus between faith and reason in their respective academic fields, then bring the fruits of their studies back into the classroom. A capstone event will be held annually during which faculty, students and members of the community will explore various aspects of the Catholic Wisdom Tradition.

Faith and Community Programs

This initiative will build upon and strengthen several existing programs for students, faculty and alumni.

• Our International Immersion Programs offer students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to travel abroad to volunteer for service in beleaguered communities of the world. These international volunteer opportunities challenge participants to exercise compassion, social analysis and faith reflection.
• The Endowed Mission Fund provides small but vital grants to faculty and staff for research and travel. These grants enable scholars to pursue projects devoted to the core mission of Seattle University, projects that increase awareness and understanding of the institution's Jesuit Catholic tradition.
• The MAGIS Program is a network of Jesuit university alumni who demonstrate the value of our educational mission and a commitment to lifelong learning through their community service and leadership. Endowment for this program will support alumni spiritual retreats and other opportunities for MAGIS participants to deepen their formation within the Ignatian tradition, provide sustained opportunities to serve with local and international communities and enable the university to host seminars to discuss distinctive elements of faithful leadership.

Priority #5

The Seattle University Fund
Goal: $13.6 Million

Annual gifts to the Seattle University Fund are contributions targeting the university's areas of greatest need in any given year. Often referred to as "margin of excellence dollars," these gifts are critical to the strength and success of Seattle University because they help bridge the gap between annual tuition revenues and actual university costs.

The cumulative effect of every gift is significant. From annual gifts as small as $10 to those as large as $10,000, we are able to provide student financial aid, offer vital operating fund assistance to specific schools and programs, and, in general, direct dollars to those programs and projects that make the difference between a good university and a great one.

Your Gifts to the Seattle University Fund:

• Provide flexibility. Annual fund contributions supply the much-needed gift of flexibility. The university can use these unrestricted funds immediately for the most pressing needs, and to respond quickly to new opportunities.
• Help Seattle University move forward with confidence. When you give—and give again every year—you allow Seattle University to plan for the future with confidence.
• Signify your advocacy for our important work. The spirit of your gift to the Seattle University Fund demonstrates your regard for the university and your desire to help us realize our vision to "become the premier independent university of the Northwest in academic quality, Jesuit Catholic inspiration and service to society."

Gifts to the Seattle University Fund have grown dramatically in recent years. Last year alone, generous donors made unrestricted annual gifts totaling more than $2.1 million.