President R. Gerald Turner surprised guests at the Volunteer Summit Friday afternoon when he announced Gerald J. Ford’s $15 million gift to the Second Century Campaign. The commitment, which brings the campaign total to $800 million, is a lead gift for the construction of a campus research center.
The Gerald J. Ford Research Center will be the home of the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute and located at the corner of McFarlin Boulevard and Airline Road. Ford is an SMU trustee and campaign convening co-chair.
Technology in the research center will grow SMU’s high-performance computing capacity from 2,000 CPU’s to more than 10,000.
The Volunteer Summit hosted more than 200 campaign leaders and volunteers in a large, clear tent on the Dallas Hall Lawn Friday, coinciding with SMU’s Homecoming weekend.
Following the Board of Trustee’s unanimous decision in September to raise the campaign goal to $1 billion, Turner announced three new goals to be completed by Dec. 31, 2015: increase the number of endowed scholarships to 500, increase the number of endowed faculty positions to 110 and complete funding for 10 major capital projects beyond the five that have already been completed during the campaign.
There are currently 472 endowed scholarships. Turner said the additional 18 will each call for an endowment of about $100,000 to support the scholarship. SMU currently has 96 endowed faculty and the goal of 100 positions was raised to 110. If that goal is reached, 30 percent of tenured faculty positions will be endowed, which moves SMU up in lists of its “cohorts” and places it in a more central spot among “aspirational schools.”
The capital projects include the Residential Commons and on-campus housing; Moody Coliseum; several library renovations, including a $19 million upgrade for Fondren Library Center; and a tennis center south of campus.
Ford described President Turner as “the No.1 president of any university in America.” Other trustees, such as Ray Hunt and Ruth Altshuler also voiced their support. Hunt said “we will be” among the small number of universities to successfully reach a campaign goal of $1 billion. Altshuler said, “$1 billion, here we come.”
