The successful launch of Penn State’s campaign has ignited its alumni and friends

TakingOff

In This Issue: Photos from the Campaign Kick-Off Weekend

Summer 2010futureFor the

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For the Future2

My family makes its living in the

�uctuating dairy economy, and

scholarships have provided the

�nancial stability to help me

continue my education at Penn

State. Without this kind of support,

my parents wouldn’t be able to

send me to Penn State. Thanks to

scholarships, though, I can focus

on my classes and aim my career

toward advancing technology in

animal sciences.

David Wilson is an Animal Sci-

ences major and a recipient of

several scholarships in the College

of Agricultural Sciences, includ-

ing the William C. Nichol Trustee

Scholarship.

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A Message from Peter Tombros

Dear Penn State Alumni and Friends, The Campaign Kick-Off was a historic moment for our Univer-sity. That weekend, we launched For the Future: The Campaign for Penn State Students and declared our official goal of raising $2 billion by the end of fiscal year 2014. At the announcement celebration on Friday, April 23, I was extremely proud to reveal that thanks to the commitment of Penn State supporters, we had already succeeded in raising over half that amount. You can see photos from the weekend’s events and performances in the fol-lowing pages. This is the first issue of the For the Future campaign newsletter, and we are very pleased to include it with your copy of The Penn Stater this month. Inside, you will learn about a unique planned gift used by one Penn State alumnus to make a difference early on,

and the faculty member who is currently benefitting from his support. Also in this issue, you can read a profile of a student whose scholarships are making it possible for her to receive the education her parents always wanted for her. Indeed, undergraduate scholarship support is the top priority of For the Future: The Campaign for Penn State Students. As you’ll see on the next page, this campaign has established six ambitious objectives united by a shared vision of Penn State as the most comprehensive, student-centered research university in the nation. I invite you to visit our Web site at www.giveto.psu.edu to learn more. There, you can also view the campaign videos produced by WPSU and the TV spots featuring President Spanier and Coach Paterno that were shown on ESPN during the kick-off weekend. This campaign is about our students and their future. We want to affirm Penn State’s place in the top echelon of higher education—to set the standard for education, research, and service across the Commonwealth and across the country. It will be our alumni and friends that will enable us to achieve that mission. As both a graduate of Penn State and its campaign chair, I thank you for your loyalty to this great institution. I hope this newsletter will remind you of what makes this University so special and help you find ways to deepen your connection with Penn State. Sincerely,

Peter G. Tombros

For the Future3

My family makes its living in the

�uctuating dairy economy, and

scholarships have provided the

�nancial stability to help me

continue my education at Penn

State. Without this kind of support,

my parents wouldn’t be able to

send me to Penn State. Thanks to

scholarships, though, I can focus

on my classes and aim my career

toward advancing technology in

animal sciences.

David Wilson is an Animal Sci-

ences major and a recipient of

several scholarships in the College

of Agricultural Sciences, includ-

ing the William C. Nichol Trustee

Scholarship.

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For the Future, For the glory of Old StateFor her founders strong and greatFor the future that we waitRaise the song, raise the song

When Fred Lewis Pattee wrote the lyrics to the Penn State Alma Mater in 1901, many of the University’s greatest traditions were already in place. The group that would become our famous Blue Band had been formed in 1899. Although the Nittany Lion mascot wouldn’t be born for a few more years, fans were al-ready cheering on teams at the first Beaver Field. And our most important tradition had been going strong from the very beginning: offering an extraordinary education to students whose means might be limited, but whose ability and ambition are limitless.

Penn State has made it possible for hundreds of thou-sands of individuals to sustain their families, advance their professions, and contribute to our country’s strength. With a University-wide goal of $2 billion by 2014, For the Future: The Campaign for Penn State Students will ensure that we can continue to fulfill our historic land-grant mission at the same time that we prepare our students for leadership in a world vastly different from any our founders could have imagined.

Starting Today

Philanthropy has become essential to keeping a Penn State degree affordable and en-abling our students, faculty, and programs to excel. Through the campaign, we hope to engage alumni and friends as our partners in meeting six key objectives: n Ensuring Student Opportunity: Increasing scholarship support so that students

from every economic background can continue to choose Penn Staten Enhancing Honors Education: Helping our best and brightest undergraduates to

fulfill their vast potential and encouraging innovation across our curriculumn Enriching the Student Experience: Taking education beyond the classroom and

preparing our students for global leadership

For the Future4

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Ensuring Student OpportunityStudents with the ability and ambition to attend the University will have this opportunity through scholarship support.

Enhancing Honors EducationStudents of exceptional ability will experience the best honors education in the nation.

Enriching the Student ExperienceStudents will thrive in a stimulating atmosphere that fosters global involvement, community service, creative expression, and personal growth.

Building Faculty Strength and CapacityStudents will study with the finest teachers and researchers.

Fostering Discovery and CreativityStudents and faculty members will come together within and across disciplines to pioneer new frontiers of knowledge.

Sustaining a Tradition of QualityStudents will continue to work and study with faculty whose scholarship is enhanced by continuing philanthropic support.

Starting Today

T H E C a m Pa i g n O B j E C T i v E S

n Building Faculty Strength and Capacity: Helping dedicated teachers and scholars at every stage of their careers to create and share new knowledge

n Fostering Discovery and Creativity: Address-ing urgent social and scientific needs and creating a vibrant academic environment in which our students thrive

n Sustaining a Tradition of Quality: Maintaining the standard of excellence in education, research, and service for which Penn State has become recognized around the world.

Scholarship support is the top priority of For the Future; nothing else we do to improve the quality of a Penn State

degree will matter if families can’t afford the education we offer. Gifts toward all six campaign objectives will be critical as we affirm our role as the most student-centered research university in America. There has never been a more exciting moment to be a Penn Stater, and there have never been greater opportunities for our supporters to make a difference at the University. It is time to join together again, for Penn State students and For the Future.

To learn more about the campaign and the many ways that you can have an impact on the University’s students, faculty, and programs, visit www.giveto.psu.edu.

For the Future5

$200,506,565 $435,000,000 46.1%

$47,298,906 $100,000,000 47.3%

$54,880,896 $164,000,000 33.5%

$89,970,666 $271,000,000 33.2%

$202,530,453 $386,000,000 52.5%

$422,014,907 $644,000,000 65.5%

Total to date Goal %

as of May 31, 2010

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Campaign Kick-Off Weekend

Penn State has one of the most active and engaged student populations in the country, with more than 75% participating in at least one of the Univer-sity’s more than 800 student organizations.

Penn State’s endowment generated approximately $65 million in program support in fiscal year ‘08–‘09.

Penn State received more than 300,000 gifts during fiscal year ‘08–‘09. Nearly 78,000 alumni contributed a total of $182 million.

Donors have created more than 3,500 scholarships at Penn State, assisting just over 11,000 students each year—but only 14% of our undergraduate students receive a privately funded academic scholarship.

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Campaign Kick-Off WeekendThese photos capture just a few of the special

moments that took place during the Campaign

Kick-Off Celebration held at the University Park

campus during Blue-White Weekend, April

23–25. Over 1,000 Penn State alumni and friends

gathered to mark the official launch of the For the

Future campaign and rededicate themselves to the

University’s success in the coming years. To see

a slideshow of photos from Campaign Kick-Off

events, please visit future.psu.edu/photos. You can

also view the campaign video shown during the

weekend by going to future.psu.edu/videos.

More than 21% of University Park un-dergraduates and 36% of undergradu-ates at other campuses are the first in their family to attend college.

Below, Campaign Vice Chair Bruce Miller

Below, Campaign Vice Chair Lee Beard

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Through its first two campaigns, Penn State added 262 endowed faculty positions. However, the University can offer endowed positions to just 9% of its tenured and tenure-track faculty members.

Every year, our undergraduates have unmet financial need totaling more than $270 million.

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74% of Penn State undergraduates receive financial assistance, most in the form of loans.

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Students graduate from Penn State with an average educational loan debt of more than $28,000.

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name: Emma Childsmajor and Class Year: I’m a senior majoring in Landscape Contracting. Scholarship Story: I grew up on a farm in Taneytown, Maryland; my dad’s a farmer. A col-lege education has been very important to my parents, knowing what they missed out on—they wanted that for all of us, even though they can’t give us as much sup-port as they want to. I’m

i m PaC T O F g i v i n g

paying for my schooling by myself with money that I’ve saved and money that I’m making now. It’s such a blessing to have a Trustee Scholarship, the Bunton-Waller Scholar-ship, and support from the Renaissance Fund. I’m grateful that people I don’t even know want to support me in my studies. Honors Experience: Being in the honors program placed higher expectations upon me that

motivated me to work harder. It also gave me the opportunity to participate in challenging projects—for example, in one of my courses, we conducted an in-depth study culmi-nating in a presentation designed for faculty about the sustainability of the campus. It went above and beyond the average research project. Future Plans: After graduation, I hope to work for a nursery or landscap-

ing business. I have aspira-tions to eventually own my own business. At Penn State, I’ve been very well prepared for my future career. I know that after I graduate, I will be able to find a good job that I will enjoy.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy on students, visit www.giveto.psu.edu/profiles.

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Planned gifts are a unique way to support Penn State while simultaneously meeting your financial goals for your retirement or estate. In addition to giving you a sense of philanthropic pride, many planned gifts provide you with significant benefits such as tax sav-ings, favorable treatment of capital gains, and guaran-teed income.

A charitable gift annuity is a particularly attractive option for donors who want to have an impact on the University but also ensure that they—and, if they wish, a loved one such a spouse—will have access to a secure income for the remainder of their lives.

Through this gift planning option, a donor makes an irrevocable gift of cash, securities, or other assets (such

You Penn State charitablegift annuity

annuitant(s), the higher the income. The payment rate in effect when the annuity is established will never de-crease, nor can you outlive it. A charitable gift annuity therefore provides a stable income stream safe from the fluctuations of the stock and real estate markets.

Charitable gift annuities at Penn State start with con-tributions of at least $10,000; unlike many retirement plans, however, there is no cap on the amount you can put in, and you can establish more than one annuity. This means that you can use charitable gift annuities to supplement your retirement savings.

If you are a younger donor (at least 35), you can create a deferred payment charitable gift annuity by contribut-ing a minimum of $5,000 now to lock in payments at

The gift that gives Back: The Charitable Gift Annuity

WaYS TO g i v E

as CDs or bonds) to benefit the area of their choice at the University. In exchange, Penn State agrees to pay one or two designated persons a fixed annual income backed by the assets of the University.

The remainder of the gift can provide unrestricted funds for Penn State leadership to meet future needs, or create endowments for support of students, faculty, or programs. For example, Lionel B. Shaffer ’40 used the residuum from a charitable gift annuity to create the Shaffer Career Development Professorship (see next page).

The minimum age to establish a charitable gift an-nuity is 60. The age of the donor(s) at the time of the gift determines the annuity rate; the older the

a future date. Deferring the annuity payments until later yields higher payouts and a larger income tax deduction in the year the annuity is established.

Charitable gift annuities and other life income gifts allow you to plan

for both your own future and the future of Penn State. Many donors, however, also wish to begin making a difference right away as part of the For the Future campaign: with the early activation option for endow-ments, you can make an outright gift of 5 percent of the pledged endowment value and see the effects of your generosity immediately.

As a gesture of appreciation, the University honors any estate provision or deferred gift commitment with membership in the Atherton Society. To find out more about how gift planning can help you tailor your gift to both maintain your financial security and make a truly meaningful contribution, visit www.giftplanning.psu.edu or contact the Office of Gift Planning toll-free at 1-888-800-9170.

1. You create an annuity.

2. You receive an income tax deduction and fixed payments for life.

3. Penn State receives the remainder after your lifetime.

For the Future13

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technology, she hopes to find out how the peak of the last ice age affected the genetic diversity of large mam-mals like mammoths and mastodons.

But while her research involves studying incremental changes that occurred long in the past, Dr. Shapiro’s own professional development is moving ahead at a swift pace—and her future looks very promising. That’s because she is the latest faculty member to be awarded the Shaffer Career Development Professorship in the Eberly College of Science.

Beth Shapiro examines the evolution of animal populations over thousands of years. Thanks to the Shaffer professorship, her career is evolving very quickly.

In a sense, Beth Shapiro’s work brings the past and fu-ture together. As an assistant professor and researcher at Penn State, she uses cutting-edge molecular biology techniques to analyze long-dead organisms. By extract-ing genetic information from 100,000-year-old bones and other prehistoric remains using sophisticated

For the Future14

the Professionadvancing

B u i l D i n g FaC u lT Y S T r E n g T H : Career Development Professorships

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By the NumbersA career development professorship represents a unique partnership between Penn State and its sup-porters on behalf of the University’s faculty. It is designed to recruit and retain rising stars in academia by providing them with critical financial backing to kick-start their careers. The funding can underwrite research and educational expenses, conference travel, graduate assistantships or technician salaries, and program operating costs.

In 2009, Penn State expanded the career development professorship program by creating the Faculty En-dowment Challenge. Through this new initiative, the University will match donor gifts on a 1:2 basis, thus permitting donors to establish a $500,000 early career professorship by contributing $334,000 over five years with the remainder coming from Penn State. (For more information about this philanthropic opportu-nity, visit giveto.psu.edu.)

“The professorship provides funds that can be used for any aspect of my research,” says Dr. Shapiro. “It’s al-lowed me to purchase equipment that is crucial for my work, but disallowed by other sources of funding, and having this money available has made it possible for me to set up my research lab to the most modern standards. Ultimately, the Shaffer professorship is going to funda-mentally shape the trajectory of my academic career.”

By giving faculty members flexible resources to al-locate as needed and explore new ideas, career devel-opment professorships can accelerate discoveries and put recipients on the fast track to success. Dr. Shapiro’s achievements are already attracting attention. Last fall, she was named a MacArthur Fellow and honored by the Searle Scholars Program, and most recently, she was selected as an Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic Society.

Much like scholarships and fellowships, endowed pro-fessorships are symbols of the University community’s belief in an individual’s potential and an investment in their future contributions to society. They serve as powerful incentives for tenure-line faculty members choosing between competing offers at universities be-cause they confer a great deal of freedom and prestige. The Shaffer Career Development Professorship was

a gift to the University from Dr. Lionel Shaffer, who earned his degree in pre-medicine from Penn State in 1940. Dr. Shaffer, who passed away in 2002 after a distin-guished career as a family physician and saxophonist, created the professorship from the residuum of a chari-table gift annuity, one of many planned gift options at the University (see page 13 for more details). Dr. Shaffer chose to “early activate” the endowment, providing im-mediate funding on behalf of talented, up-and-coming faculty members. In doing so, he was able to see the fruits of his investment early on while simultaneously establishing a significant legacy at Penn State.

For the Future15

Through the new Faculty Endowment Challenge, donors can leverage a 1:2 match from the University and estab-lish an early career professor-ship—normally $500,000—with a gift of just $334,000.

Dr. Shaffer’s gift has proven beneficial not only to faculty in the Eberly College of Science, but students as well. Currently, Dr. Shapiro teaches two courses at Penn State: a senior-level bioinformatics class and an introductory biology course. “I thoroughly enjoy it,” Dr. Shapiro says of the intro lecture course. “I teach the first half to a large audience of nearly 700 students. I love the challenge of reaching everyone despite the class size.”

Indeed, associate and assistant faculty members are often the ones to teach such introductory courses. In doing so, they can reach thousands of students, mean-ing that they have a wide influence on undergraduate education at the University. By attracting top research-ers with endowed professorships, Penn State ensures that its students learn from the best minds, passionate new faculty members with fresh perspectives on the latest developments in the field. Such enthusiastic edu-cators can spark a lifelong interest in the discipline—and encourage even more bright minds to follow in their footsteps.

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July 8–11 Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts

September 24 President’s Club Reception

October 9 Penn State Homecoming

October 13 Alumni Fellows Reception and Induction

November 4 Renaissance Fund Dinner

T H E Y E a r a H E a D

a Healthier World awaitsOne of the central initiatives of the For the Future campaign is a new freestanding Children’s Hospital at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Thanks

to dedicated supporters, the Children’s Hospital surpassed its campaign goal of $65 million and broke ground on the state-of-the-art facility in November.

A supplement to The Penn Stater magazine

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