“These gifts are an important demonstration of support for what we do at Humboldt State,” says HSU President Rollin Richmond. “It is clear that our alumni had a wonderful experience when they were students here, and that current family members value the education and personal attention their students are receiving.”
Nearly 4,000 alumni donated to HSU last year, many through the Humboldt Loyalty Fund. Those gifts will be used for projects that directly benefit students, including student scholarships, a pilot project with the Journalism Department to help provide local news coverage on KHSU and display tanks and equipment at the HSU Marine Lab in Trinidad.
One alumnus who contributed, Dale Peterson (‘99), says, “One reason I started giving to HSU is that I remember being in the water quality labs when I was a student and you could tell the department, like all state schools, was trying to ‘stretch a buck.’ I could see where a few extra dollars could really help keep the labs up to date.”
More than 700 family members contributed to the Parents & Family Fund in fiscal year 2010. Those gifts are being put to use on campus, providing funds to send students and faculty to make presentations at academic conferences, bringing academic speakers to campus and supporting special initiatives in each of the Colleges and the Library.
As the parent of a recent HSU graduate, Richard Lambie has made a gift to HSU for the past three years. He says, “I try to support things that I see working well. That includes giving to our church, to public television, and to Humboldt State. If each family supported an institution it believed in, we could ensure that a quality education remains available to all.”
The annual total includes gifts from alumni, parents, University faculty and staff, businesses and grants from private foundations. It does not include federal or state government grants. Faculty and staff giving is also on the rise, with over 180 gifts totaling more than $140,000. That is up 42 percent over the previous year.
Last year, HSU received one of the largest cash gifts in its history: $1 million from The Bernard Osher Foundation to help fund HSU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), which provides learning opportunities for those over 50. The grant will create an endowment to cover a portion of HSU OLLI operating expenses in perpetuity.
Other major gifts last year include:
• The Save the Redwoods League gave $300,000 to HSU to kick off the “Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative.” This ambitious effort, led by a team of scientists at Humboldt State and UC Berkeley, has begun to decipher how redwood forests respond to changing climates. “This is the most integrated and extensive redwood research project in history,” says HSU Professor Steve Sillett, who holds the Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology and directs the HSU Institute for Redwood Ecology.
• A $189,000 bequest came from the late Jean Wellington, an on-air mainstay of Humboldt State’s KHSU/KHSR for nearly two decades. The funds created an endowment to support the Leland Barlow Music Scholarship, awarded to the Department of Music’s incoming majors, and the Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop, which provides young musicians with total immersion in chamber music.
• The United Plankton Foundation, the Desert Community Foundation and the Humboldt Loyalty Fund together awarded over $125,000 to Humboldt State University’s Telonicher Marine Laboratory in Trinidad, Calif. (There was also a $200,000 award from the National Science Foundation to the project.) The funds are being used to remodel the wet lab and acquire new display tanks to offer a better experience for nearly 15,000 visitors who pass through the lab each year. “Students will have a vastly improved environment for carrying out their research,” says Dave Hankin, Acting Associate Dean for Marine Sciences. “And we will now be able to put on more exciting displays for visitors than we’ve ever had.”
• A bequest of $108,000 came from the estate of Clarence Bevington, who received his B.S. in Biology from HSU. His career as a marine biologist ended with an injury sustained in an accident, and he turned to real estate, founding C. Bevington Realty Associates. The gift from his estate went to the Humboldt Loyalty Fund Endowment, where it will be invested, with a percentage paid out to campus projects each year.
• The estate of artist Brian Sproul donated $40,000 to HSU, along with a significant collection of Sproul’s artwork. The newly-created Brian Sproul Art Endowment will be used for funding awards for student art, hiring jurors for student exhibitions, bringing accomplished visiting artists to campus, and providing field trips for students to see art outside the local area. “Brian deeply valued the art community in Arcata, and he recognized that HSU was in a position to help and encourage other artists become part of that community,” said Sproul’s brother, Richard Alwine.
The increase in gifts last year to Humboldt State is particularly notable amid a decrease in giving to educational institutions nationwide. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, charitable contributions to colleges and universities fell 11.9 percent in 2009.