NORMAN – University of Oklahoma President David L. Boren today announced a $500 million campaign to raise private funds to support student scholarships; new residential colleges and classroom and laboratory upgrades; and endowments for faculty fellowships, universitywide initiatives and college programs.

Boren’s announcement of the “Live On, University” campaign marks the inaugural event of the university’s celebration of its 125th anniversary, which culminates in December 2015. A silent phase of the five-year campaign began in 2013.

“Never before has the University of Oklahoma been in greater need of financial support from its alumni and friends,” Boren said. “We must continue to set the highest standards of educational excellence for this generation of students. It is an investment to secure our future.”

Boren outlined the universitywide initiatives in the campaign. The largest component of the campaign – with a goal of $100 million – would provide scholarships for qualified undergraduate and graduate students across all majors and disciplines. OU has more than doubled its private scholarships in the past five years. Still, 57 percent of students and their families must take out loans to pay for college costs – loans of $22,140 on average and higher for students in professional, advanced and medical-related fields.

Other campaign goals are:

·         $3 million to endow scholarships for students in the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work both on the OU Norman campus and the OU-Tulsa campus.

·         $25 million to provide additional state-of-the-art classrooms and laboratories for key energy programs.

·         $20 million to support the creation of OU’s residential colleges – on-campus living and learning communities for students in their sophomore, junior and senior years that will strengthen OU’s position as a residential university.

·         A $10 million endowment for the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art to ensure that the museum is always positioned to preserve and expand its outstanding art collections, exhibits and programs.

·         A $5.1 million endowment for Presidential Teaching Fellowships in the Joe C. and Carole Kerr McClendon Honors College to increase opportunities for OU’s most talented faculty – across all colleges and departments – to teach some of OU’s most talented students in the small-class format of an honors course.

·         A $6 million endowment for the Institute for Quality Communities to increase understanding of the importance of quality planning for neighborhoods, towns and cities in Oklahoma.

·         A $5 million endowment for the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage to make OU a national model for integrating civic education into the college curriculum and endow the institute’s signature event – the annual Teach-In, and

·         A $5 million endowment for OU’s signature study abroad program in Arezzo, Italy, to help operate and maintain this facility, which serves more than 250 OU students and faculty-in-residence on a year-round basis.