Hand over fist at OSU

Jacob Longan - NewsPress

June 29, 2008 12:20 am

— When booster Boone Pickens announced May 21 he was donating $100 million to Oklahoma State University to endow chairs, it seemed like an embarrassment of riches for the school.
In little more than a month since, the donations have continued to roll in.
Pickens’ donation was designed to match any other donation to endow chairs and professorships. He also decided to allow other donors to choose the names of their endowments.
The school thought it would have time to quadruple the impact of the gift. Each donation is matched by a portion of Pickens’ gift and then that amount gets a 100 percent match from the state’s endowed chair program.
But when it was announced the dollar-for-dollar match was ending July 1, OSU’s fundraisers had to move at “warp speed,” as President Burns Hargis put it, to maximize each donation’s impact.
The program’s changes, approved by the Legislature in the final days of the session, include a statewide annual cap of $5 million and matching only 25 percent of any donation larger than $250,000.
Between May 21 and the close of business Friday, OSU had announced $75.5 million in donations, including $24.75 million for endowments.
With matches from Pickens’ gift and the state program, the total impact is $149.75 million, including $99 million for endowments.
“I’ve only been here five years but I think this is unprecedented,” said Kirk Jewell, president and CEO of the OSU Foundation. “The excitement, the momentum and the response is phenomenal.”
Jewell said he has talked to donors who couldn’t give the $500,000 necessary to endow a chair or $250,000 necessary for a professorship, but took advantage of this window to give $10,000, or $50,000 or even $100,000.
“Most of the colleges have a pool they are putting together of the donors’ smaller gifts to reach the $250,000 threshold,” Jewell said.
He estimated the school will have done about a year’s worth of fundraising in 40 days.
Still, neither he nor Hargis say they are going to reach their goal of $100 million for endowments by Tuesday’s deadline.
While that might be disappointing news for the university, it will still be in a good position.
Pickens’ donation will be matched by the state. Until that $200 million combined runs out, the school will be getting $3 for each new $1 donated rather than $4 as they could before the deadline.
One who beat the deadline is alumnus and Oklahoma City resident David Kniffin. He gave $250,000 to establish a faculty chair in memory of his father, the late Claud Kniffin.
The total impact is $1 million after matches by Pickens and the state.
“I thought it was really magnanimous (of Pickens),” David Kniffin said. “I can’t think of a better word. It was a magnanimous effort on his part to be so flexible about it. It left everyone breathless. It did me.”
Pickens declines to take credit for the influx of donations.
He admits he initially had a concern when he started giving large amounts others might not give, believing the school didn’t need them when they had the multi-billionaire as a backer.
“They didn’t do that at all, because I think people said, ‘Look, we can do it now,’” Pickens said. “Everybody’s reaching down and what they can do, they’re doing it, because they want to be in on it.”
OSU had 101 fully-funded professorships and chairs before Pickens’ donation. The school estimates it will add 150 while it focuses its fundraising efforts on these endowments.
“For one thing, (that will enable) us to retain and attract the best faculty,” Hargis said. “That’s really important. It’s not just compensation to them. It’s graduate assistants, startup costs, research, that kind of thing. That’s one thing. To the extent you can provide those resources without raising tuition, you take pressure off tuition increases.”
He added, “The large part of the (9.9 percent) tuition increase will really go to keep our salaries competitive and provide a quality education to our students. If you can provide those resources from another source, you are able to relieve some of that pressure.”