By Eileen Conrad

The Campaign for UC Santa Barbara, the campus’s first comprehensive private fund-raising effort, has generated more than $430 million to date toward a goal of $500 million for priority projects and initiatives across the academic disciplines.

Of that total, UCSB alumni and friends contributed $70.8 million in gifts and pledges during the 2006-07 fiscal year for student support, teaching, research, and capital projects—an increase of nearly 30 percent over the previous year.

“We are so grateful for the extraordinarily generous support given to The Campaign for UC Santa Barbara in the past year,” said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to the trustees of the UC Santa Barbara Foundation as well as our alumni, parents, friends, and members of our own faculty and staff. UC Santa Barbara’s world-class stature and sustained rise in reputation owe a great deal to the shared vision of our donors.”

Since the inception of the campaign in 2000, UCSB’s endowment—now estimated at $190 million—has grown by $115 million.

Forty-four endowed professorships have been established so far to help support the teaching and research of the university’s faculty, bringing UCSB’s total to 68. Similarly, 107 new fellowships have been created to attract outstanding graduate students.

Last year’s success was boosted by some exceptionally generous donations. Virgil Elings, a former UCSB physics professor, and Betty Elings Wells contributed a total of $12.5 million to support pioneering research at the California NanoSystems Institute. In recognition, the institute’s new state-of-the-art building was named Elings Hall.

Construction has begun on the privately funded Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media, part of a state-funded academic building complex for the College of Letters and Science and the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education (GGSE). The complex will house the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Center for Asperger Research and the enhanced Koegel Autism Research and Training Center.

Furthermore, the Mosher Alumni House recently opened to welcome returning graduates and visitors to UCSB. More than $11.8 million already has been raised for the $12.5 million building project.

During 2006-07, individual gifts increased by more than 4 percent over the previous year reaching 21,000, despite a small decline in gifts from alumni. Although unrestricted giving was down slightly, support for instruction, campus improvement, and academic departments increased substantially.

Corporate and foundation support rose by more than 50 percent to $35.5 million. This was due primarily to a number of large corporate donations, including more than $10.1 million for a new Solid State Lighting and Energy Center from Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Rohm Company, Ltd., Stanley Electric Company, Ltd., and four anonymous corporate donors.

To address California’s high school dropout crisis, a consortium consisting of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the Walter S. Johnson Foundation contributed $850,000 to establish the California Dropout Research Project in the GGSE.

Among the other large gifts to the campus was a $1 million gift to intercollegiate athletics, of which $600,000 was unrestricted support for UCSB’s NCAA-winning men’s soccer program. Arts & Lectures received $1.3 million from a growing number of benefactors.

Planned gifts amounted to more than $4 million and included a bequest from the late Howard Fenton, an emeritus UCSB professor of art, for student endowments in art and art history.