Duke University Pratt School of Engineering

What's next in Development in Pratt School of Engineering?

With the Campaign for Duke behind us, we now begin to focus on some new initiatives as well as completing some old ones. To accomplish this we have set some ambitious goals for the 2004-05 fiscal year, partly because we are victims of our own success. Indeed, the Pratt School of Engineering had one the finest campaigns of all schools and programs at Duke during the Campaign for Duke. We raised $210 million, a quadrupling of our original goal for the campaign!

There could be a natural letdown in Development after a major campaign. However, there is still much good work to be done, and therefore we must continue the march to excellence. The need for professorships, scholarships and fellowships for the School along with support for existing and new programs are all still very real. And now we have the added expense of our portion of the maintenance and operation (M&O) for our new FCIEMAS complex - the largest building on the Duke campus.

"Unrestricted" funds such as the Annual Fund are invaluable to the School in balancing our fiscal budget. This year we need to increase our Annual Fund goal by 25% over what we raised last year for a total of $2,300,000. We plan to achieve this in part by forming a special advisory group to the Dean called the "Pratt Circle of Fellows". A minimum gift of $50,000 to the Annual Fund will provide entry into this special organization. Dean Kristina Johnson has generously agreed to be an inaugural member of the Pratt Circle. The continued generous support of our alumni and friends for the Annual Fund is critical for the School to successfully achieve this goal!

Endowment support continues to be important for the School. It is the earnings from our endowments that free up operating dollars to provide the kind of bold, personal, hands-on cross-disciplinary engineering education we aspire to deliver to the country' most talented students. At present the Pratt School has 19 named professorships. It is our goal to honor the top 33% of our faculty with a named professorship. With 91 faculty members we need to raise 30 professorships or 11 more than we have now. We hope to close on three professorships this year for a total of $4.5 million. Scholarships and Fellowships are also key to the School. We will want to continue our focus in this area as we have in the past. Our goal is to raise $2,200,000 in this area.

Completing the fundraising for FCIEMAS is close at hand. We estimate that if we can raise another $5 million we will have succeeded in collecting the $97 million that we determined was necessary to build this facility as originally designed.

We successfully secured a loan from the Lord Foundation for $1 million for the DELTA Smart House and this along with an anonymous gift of $500,000, will allow us to break ground for this facility in the fall of 2006. We hope to repay this loan from a corporate gift that is in the process of being negotiated.

The renovation of Hudson Hall is a high priority for the School. With the completion of FCIEMAS we are now able to begin seeking funds to hire an architect and begin design/development phase for this project We need to raise an initial $1 million and another $4 million next year to receive the matching money from the University. We have established a faculty committee to perform the programmatic planning for Hudson Hall, chaired by Rob Clark and Sandra Connolly, our new Associate Dean for Finance and Administration.

All total, our goal is to raise close to $16 million in gifts and pledges for the categories listed above for the 2004-05 fiscal year. Another $5 million is needed in program support. You can make a difference right now by making a gift online today.

Robert W. "Judge" Carr, Jr. E'71
Senior Associate Dean
Development and Alumni Affairs
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School of Engineering