Welcome to the Dean's Fund for Excellence
Support Students, Faculty, and Your
Community Today!
Thank you for visiting the Dean’s Fund for Excellence at Portland State University's College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.
Because it’s never been more urgent for us to support our students, faculty, and community, we’ve set an ambitious goal to raise $250,000 this year. Please take a moment to learn how we plan to use your gifts, how they will make a difference, and why you should consider making a gift today.
Follow these links to learn how your undesignated gift to the Dean’s Fund will helps us to…
You can also learn what we’re doing to minimize the impact of budget cuts on students.
Thank you,
Marvin A. Kaiser, Dean
| 45% | We plan to use 45% of your gift for scholarships and emergency hardship grants to students, many of whom could not afford to attend Portland State without your support. |
Next year, scholarship recipient Anne Olivia Eldred will complete a triple major in International Development, Sociology, and Social Sciences and a minor in International Economics. During her time at PSU, Anne has studied and volunteered in Spain, Mexico, El Salvador, and Japan. She was named the Sociology Department’s Outstanding Senior and has earned her way to the Dean’s List and the President’s List. She will graduate with honors and is weighing scholarship offers from Columbia, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and The London School of Economics.
According to Anne, “I never thought that I would have those options. Thank you to the people who funded my education. There is no way that I could ever have made it without them. They have changed my life by opening doors to me that I never thought possible.”
| 10% | We plan to use 10% of your gift to provide faculty members with opportunities to develop greater excellence in teaching, scholarship, and academic leadership. |
Communication professor David Ritchie and his students study how people use metaphors, stories, and humor to deal with stressful situations. Last year they began working with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University to study how emergency response personnel use language to cope with the stress of their work – and how ordinary citizens use it to grapple with alleged incidents of police profiling and to build empathy with law enforcement and other groups.
“We hope to apply what we learn to attitudes about crime,” says professor Ritchie. “The partnership with Johns Hopkins would not have happened without the ability to attend the International Communication Association conference this last spring, which the Dean’s Fund helped to pay for.”
| 40% | We plan to use 40% of your gift to support our efforts to engage our community and develop more resources for students and faculty. |
In 2007 the Dean’s Fund supported a partnership between PSU’s Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan-America Society of Oregon, and the Northwest Film Center to co-produce the Japanese Currents Festival of film. With support from the Dean’s Fund, the Center for Japanese Studies helped to plan and promote the festival and included its films in class curricula.
According to Bruce Brenn, the Center’s Advisory Board Chair, “Japan is enormously important to the United States, economically and culturally - especially for those of us who live in Oregon. Our Center and students are grateful to the Dean’s Fund for helping us to engage new audiences through Japan’s innovative filmmaking.”
You support accountability.
| 5% | Five percent of your gift helps our partner, the Portland State University Foundation, to administer your gift and provide the financial accountability you expect. |
It’s just five percent, but it helps us to ensure that your gift goes to the cause you intend to support!
Please give today.
Unfortunately, the cost of public higher education in Oregon has risen significantly this year, making scholarships more important than ever before. For many students, just a few dollars makes the difference between attending Portland State and deferring their dreams of a university education.
For these students, your gift of $1,000 will pay nearly 20% of a year’s in-state tuition and fees - that’s 64 credit hours. Your gift of $500 will buy half a year’s worth of books and class supplies. Or, your gift of $100 will allow five students to purchase their materials and equipment for introductory science lab courses.
And, in these financially tough times, a gift of $500 can make a world of difference for a faculty member developing new research or a program building new community partnerships.
Thank you again for visiting the Dean’s Fund for Excellence. Please make your gift today.
p.s. For information on including Portland State in your estate plans, including how to take advantage of the IRA Charitable Transfer before it expires at the end of this year, please visit PSU’s Planned Giving Website.
We’re doing our part.
How is the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences responding to hard economic times? In the face of enrollment that has grown by 20% since September 2007, this year we have reduced our expenditures by more than 5%, or nearly $2.4 million dollars. Among steps we have taken, we have implemented salary reductions, sought to optimize class sizes, and undertaken projects to dramatically reduce energy costs.
Frankly, with enrollment growing, in the long run those cuts are unsustainable. But, in this tough time, we’re working hard to pinch every penny and minimize impacts on students.
