USC Consistent Top Fundraiser With Harvard and Stanford

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
21

<p>To answer the Stanford advocates questions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>USC’s campaign was announced on September 15, 2011. 2012, not 2011 would be considered the frist year of USC’s campaign for alumni giving purposes. Those results have not been reported. It is misleading to consider 2011 as the first year of the campaign given a September 15, 2011, not a January 1, 2011 start date.</p></li>
<li><p>With half of its majors in STEM, relative to non Tech universities Stanford has a disproportionate number of tech majors. Stanford’s proportion of STEM majors likely approach those at institutions which properly identify them selves as tech (MIT, CalPoly) Further, Stanford has cultivated an interdependence with Silicon Valley tech industry to the extent concern with the extent of the relationship was recently explored in New Yorker magazine and Stanford’s own newspaper editoria. Stanford is unusual in priding itself as an incubator for Silicon Valley and promoting entrepreneurship/start ups among faculty and students. How exactly do the humanities faculty and students generate start ups to the extent the STEM faculty and students do?</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford’s President has a published salary of I believe $632,000. Yet, this is cited as but a fraction of the amount he accrues through SV investments purported to be roughly $8,000,000 per year. Used as a proxy, the suggestion is as SV tech goes, so go the fortunes of Stanford faculty and alums, along with their giving. I doubt if there is such a preponderance of income derived from investment in tech and tech partners at few, if any, other institutions. I suspect if one looks long and hard enough, comparative data across institutions comparing salary and investment in tech partners data is available. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>The figure cited of th amount of tech spin-offs in 2011-2012 that contributed to Stanford’s budget is not relevant to the question of the % of alumni and faculty giving that is derived from tech start ups and tech equity holdings–both vulnerable in adverse economic cycles.</p>

22

<p>

</p>

<p>Data needs to be adjusted for medical schools.</p>

<ol>
<li>Stanford University ($785.04 million) med school</li>
<li>Harvard University ($650.63 million) med school</li>
<li>Columbia University ($495.11 million) med school</li>
<li>Yale University ($486.61 million) med school</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania ($475.96 million) med school</li>
<li>University of California, Los Angeles ($456.65 million) med school</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University ($ 448.96 million) med school</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin-Madison ($410.23 million) med school</li>
<li>Cornell University ($409.42 million) med school</li>
<li>University of Southern California ($409.18 million) med school </li>
<li>Indiana University ($408.62 million) med school</li>
<li>New York University ($387.61 million) med school</li>
<li>Duke University ($385.67 million) med school</li>
<li>University of California, San Francisco ($366.07 million) med school ONLY </li>
<li>University of Michigan ($333.45 million) med school</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology ($311.90 million) NO med school </li>
<li>University of Minnesota ($307.61 million) med school</li>
<li>University of Washington ($302.77 million) med school</li>
<li>University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($292.39 million) med school </li>
<li>University of California, Berkeley ($285.35 million) NO med school</li>
</ol>

<p>should become:

  1. Stanford University ($785.04 million)
  2. University of California, Berkeley/UCSF ($651.42 million)
  3. Harvard University ($650.63 million)
  4. Columbia University ($495.11 million)
  5. Yale University ($486.61 million)
  6. University of Pennsylvania ($475.96 million)
  7. University of California, Los Angeles ($456.65 million)
  8. Johns Hopkins University ($ 448.96 million)
  9. University of Wisconsin-Madison ($410.23 million)
  10. Cornell University ($409.42 million)
  11. University of Southern California ($409.18 million)
  12. Indiana University ($408.62 million)
  13. New York University ($387.61 million)
  14. Duke University ($385.67 million)
  15. University of Michigan ($333.45 million)
  16. Massachusetts Institute of Technology ($311.90 million)
  17. University of Minnesota ($307.61 million)
  18. University of Washington ($302.77 million)
  19. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($292.39 million) </p>

<p>:)</p>

23

<p>If Berkeley gets to claim UCSF’s med school, why not go ahead and throw in UCD’s vet school while you are at it?</p>

24

<p>Don’t forget UC Hastings! If UCSF is part of Berkeley then Hastings must count. End result UC Berkeley wins! Congrats, UCB. (Sarcasm)</p>

25

<p>Let me beat UCBChem to the chase. He will say they have a close relationship unlike any other universities. He will cite the Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program (JMP). [The</a> Curriculum | Degrees & Programs | Office of Admissions | UCSF School of Medicine](<a href=“http://medschool.ucsf.edu/admissions/degrees/curriculum.aspx]The”>http://medschool.ucsf.edu/admissions/degrees/curriculum.aspx)</p>

<p>But using his logic then USC Keck must be Caltech’s medical school [Biology</a> Division - MD/PHD Programs](<a href=“http://biology.caltech.edu/graduate_program/MDPHD.html]Biology”>http://biology.caltech.edu/graduate_program/MDPHD.html) Flawed logic, UCBChem.</p>

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<p>Yes, Stanford and Harvard raise more funds than USC. However, SC has had some good years. In 2010 the university just missed being 3rd in fundraising by only a million dollars.</p>

<p>From Council for Aid to Education: Top Fundraising Universities 2010</p>

<ol>
<li>Stanford
598 millioon</li>
<li> Harvard
596 million</li>
<li> Johns Hopkins
427 million</li>
<li><p>Southern California
426 million</p></li>
<li><p>UC at Berkeley<br>
307 million</p></li>
</ol>

27

<p>^ of course. USC has done well in others years too, e.g. in 2002 at the end of its last campaign, it was #1 in fundraising. It just doesn’t make sense to claim that USC is the “only” university in the country that’s trying to compete with H and S for fundraising - as the lists showed, there are several.</p>

<p>docfreedaddy,</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Of course, whatever fits USC’s figures to your liking. :)</p></li>
<li><p>This shows how much you’re guessing.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>

</p>

<p>MIT has about 85% in STEM. Stanford has about 40-45%. You say “likely approach”; this was very easy to look up.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>What does this have to do with anything that we’re discussing?</p>

<ol>
<li>Do you realize how absurd this sounds? “The president has strong connections to Silicon Valley; the rest of the faculty and alums must as well! And therefore all of Stanford’s fundraising comes from SV. QED” </li>
</ol>

<p>

</p>

<p>“Proxy,” “suggestion” - in other words, you have no evidence to support this conclusion. By the way, it’s very common for university presidents to be on corporate boards. Princeton’s president has been on Google’s board for many years. Therefore, Princeton’s fortunes must be heavily tied to the tech sector, right? MIT’s president is on the board of GE; I guess MIT’s fortunes must be heavily tied to the energy industry, right?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That isn’t the matter at hand. You asserted that Stanford’s fundraising has been dependent on the tech boom - without any citation. I provided a related figure: how much money Stanford derives from licensed technologies. This isn’t fundraising (nor did I assert it was), but it does show one way in which money flows back to Stanford from SV. I’m not denying that Stanford benefits from the wealth of SV, but asking you to prove that Stanford is “dependent” on it.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Every sector is vulnerable in adverse economic cycles. Not sure what your point is.</p>

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<p>The potential pitfalls associated with Stanford’s emphasis upon STEM, symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley, and concern with observations of an atmosphere of societally useless star-ups purely for economic gain replacing kwowledge acquisition is explored in depth in recent article in the New Yorker,</p>

<p>“Get Rich U” [Is</a> Stanford Too Close to Silicon Valley? : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_auletta]Is”>Stanford and Silicon Valley | The New Yorker), </p>

<p>Inc. Wire,"Is Silicon Valley Swallowing Stanford
[Is</a> Silicon Valley Swallowing Stanford University? Inc. Wire.](<a href=“http://wire.inc.com/2012/04/25/is-silicon-valley-swallowing-stanford-university/]Is”>http://wire.inc.com/2012/04/25/is-silicon-valley-swallowing-stanford-university/),</p>

<p>as well as an editorial in the Stanford newspaper, "The Precarious Relationship Between Stanford and Silicon Valley
[Editorial:</a> The precarious relationship between Stanford and Silicon Valley | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/05/14/editorial-the-precarious-relationship-between-stanford-and-silicon-valley/]Editorial:”>Editorial: The precarious relationship between Stanford and Silicon Valley),</p>

<p>In total, these offer a well researched, comprehensive perspective to anyone interested. Obsessive data gathering to compulsively attempt to refute any suggestion that issues with Stanford’s current direction are futile. The greatness and vulnerability of Stanford is public knowledge. </p>

<p>The original focus on this discussion had been USC’s fund raising success which appears to parallel USC’s overall success in becoming a university of excellence with an enthusiastic alumni base and extremely satisfied students.</p>

29

<p>As always, you retreat when asked to present evidence and construct an actually logical argument. These articles (which have been rebutted numerous times by Stanford folk and non-Stanford folk) are just more of your hand-waving; they have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. But I suppose you can’t stop yourself from criticizing Stanford at every possible opportunity, right?</p>

<p>Do get back to me when (or if) you find evidence to support your assertions re: Stanford’s fundraising.</p>

30

<p>My basis for concluding that only USC can or will compete head to head with Stanford and Harvard is based on the fact only USC has beaten H or S for the top fundraising spot in the past decade (e.g., 2002). While it’s no more than perhaps three times in the past 15 years (including the most recent year not yet reported), no other school has achieved the top spot. Accordingly, USC has demonstrated it can raise the most money nationally, along with H and S. </p>

<p>And regarding the alumni issue, we can agree to disagree. You can rely on the membership in the “official” USC alumni association, and I’ll rely on the university’s numbers based upon degrees conferred. BTW, why don’t you join our alumni association? All you need to do is complete the on-line registration.</p>

31

<p>P. The original and subsequent articles regarding Stanford are available for all to review and reach their own conclusions which may or may not agree with yours. I am not comfortable with the extent you feel the need to personalize discourse and present your opinions as dogma.</p>

32

<p>Georgia Girl, not bad being only $119 million behind when medical research donations are not included in Berkeley’s totals.</p>

<p>Majority of donations to most universities with med schools is for medical research.</p>

<p>That was my point. Need to compare apples to apples.</p>

33

<p>SeattleTW, that’s a decent reason, although I think average fundraising per year is more telling than any one year (which shows USC is about as competitive as a small handful of other top universities, which is impressive). Out of genuine curiosity, do you have any data on the top 15 fundraisers in the past 15 years? I haven’t found any data online that’s publicly available.</p>

<p>Re: the alumni issue, I’m not sure why you put “official” in quotes - it’s from the actual, *official *USC alumni website. And for your entertainment, I put my name in for the sign-up, and was told “Based on the information provided, you could not be found on the list of eligible members.” :wink: The 300k figure is the official number (why would you prefer to have far fewer alumni?), although the association has mailing addresses for only 240k of them.</p>

<p>docfreedaddy, yes, all articles are available for people to review; no one has contested this. Again, what evidence do you have to support your previous assertions? I’m sure everyone, including USC people, would love to have such data. Nothing about this is “personalized”; just give the citations, and you won’t be backed into a corner. It’s easy, promise. :)</p>

<p>UCBChemEGrad, while I agree with you that it makes sense to combine donations for Berkeley/UCSF (most combinations of the two don’t fit the bill, but here it does), I’m curious about your claim that the majority of donations to universities with med schools is for medical research. UCSF is a superb fundraiser, which may explain why these two end up among the top. What you said is certainly a plausible claim (e.g. perhaps that’s why JHU is always among the top fundraisers, and why Princeton isn’t), but if you have any data on med schools providing the majority of donations to universities, it’d be interesting to see. (It’s especially interesting here, since Stanford just launched a $1 billion campaign earlier this year - immediately after finishing its last campaign - for Stanford medicine, so that suggests it’s somewhat separate.)</p>

34

<p>To join the alumni association just sign up for the USC Trojan Family magazine…you will then receive a code from the address label you can enter to join.</p>

35

<p>Not to join the parallel debate but I read the New Yorker piece last month and agree with Doc’s analysis. Stanford professors in particular seem to pimp their students for investment opportunities.</p>

36

<p>Having attended Stanford, I can assure you that no, Stanford professors don’t ever seem to “pimp” their students for investment opportunities. In fact, I can guarantee: ask almost any Stanford student or alum in SV, and they will tell you: a prof didn’t have any involvement in the company. It’s always confused me why news sources pump up professors’ involvement in startups - they often give advice, sometimes connections, and often research prowess, but rarely are they ever involved in the actual startup process (esp. compared to the vast majority of startups that students have). You can look this up in recent startup companies - very few are actually connected to Stanford CS professors. ;)</p>

<p>I’m curious where this “in particular seem to” comes from, so if you would, please expand upon what you mean. If possible, could you provide examples and sources from which you came to this view? I’d be genuinely interested to see why an outsider’s perspective is as different from mine and others as it is. :)</p>

37

<p>Phanta,</p>

<p>That’s correct. Princeton, MIT and Berkeley (universities lacking medical schools) never seem to break into the top fundraising ranks. Medical research is important to a lot of people and tugs at the heart strings to give more. Therefore, schools with a large medical research presence will attract a lot of donations.</p>

<p>Take a look at this UC Private Fundraising Report for 2010-11:
<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jan12/e4attach.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jan12/e4attach.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Page 15 of the report shows 48.59% of all private gifts to UC were dedicated to Health Science & Medicine purposes. Gifts to UCLA for Health Science and Medicine constituted 25.44% of the Health Science giving, while at Berkeley only 4.41% of donations were directed to Health Science purposes. Of the total Health Sciences support, 65% was dedicated to Medicine.</p>

<p>The report also has interesting insight into alumni giving. Berkeley’s private donations from individuals were made up of 72% alumni…compare that to UCLA’s 52% and UCSD’s dismal 7.5%. But that’s a topic for another discussion not on this USC board.</p>

38

<p>Please don’t misconstrue my prior post, which is based on the New Yorker piece. ( I love Stanford because they accepted me in the 1980’s.) Several observations in that article suggest the professors are not merely introducing their STEM students to VC’s out of the goodness of their hearts but are looking and/or using their students for investment opportunities. I’m not judging Stanford as being alone in that department because I’ve heard of similar things happening at MIT. I’m curious about how the learning culture at Stanford has changed throughout the years. I wasn’t a STEM student but am wondering if the social sciences are being de-emphasized as has been reported.</p>

39

<p>I found this gem on the USC website that provides historical background for our little upstart university over 130 years ago and helps explain what drives the Trojan Family. For you see, USC had no Rockefeller, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt or other benefactor to endow us; we had nothing more than the vision and dreams of a pistol-carrying judge who was determined to create an institution in an empty and dusty field in a Western town. Our ancestors were ambitious pioneers and disruptive thinkers of the day, and with their guidance and true grit we built our university together brick by brick, donation by donation, year by year and generation upon generation.</p>

<p>C. L. Max Nikias
Campaign Announcement Celebration</p>

<p>September 16, 2011
By C. L. Max Nikias</p>

<p>"It has been a privilege for Niki and me to enjoy this historic academic celebration, surrounded by our faculty, staff, students, friends and the Trojan Family. This is indeed ‘family time,’ a moment to consider what this university community has been and to imagine what it can be for generations to come.</p>

<p>A key theme of this unprecedented fundraising campaign is about bringing destiny forth from possibility: the destined reign of Troy.</p>

<p>Consider the case of one man in a remote outpost of the American continent in a dusty village, thousands of miles removed from where the power center of his nation stood. He stood one evening in an empty field, one that had been dismissed by its owners as having limited use for agriculture, or for most commercial purposes. And in that quiet field, he had a dream.</p>

<p>He looked around, and he saw one of the most favorable environments ever known to humanity: majestic mountains within easy reach; a vast ocean nearby, which offered open access to the world; and a climate that seemed to be designed by heaven itself offering for the unlimited expression of the human mind, body and spirit. This, he said, is where the next great world city will arise. This is where the next great university will arise.</p>

<p>That man was Robert Maclay Widney. This extraordinary man had been a U.S. district judge and helped bring the Pacific Railroad to Los Angeles. He organized the first chamber of commerce and the city’s first light and power company. He was a real estate developer and co-founder of the city of Long Beach. He was known as the ‘pistol-packing judge.’</p>

<p>But it was in a dusty field, that Judge Widney realized his most ambitious dream. That field was part of a plot of land owned by Childs, Downey and Hellman. Looking across that field, Judge Widney sensed that, for Southern California to prosper, it needed to build the right university at the right time. We stand today just a few yards away from where the first USC building was constructed, the white building now known as Widney Alumni House, which since has been moved close to Figueroa and Exposition.</p>

<p>It actually took nearly a decade for Judge Widney to realize his dream of a University of Southern California. The economic uncertainties of the 1870s had convinced many that such a university could never happen. But Widney kept planning for the right moment. And when that moment arrived, he and the tiny Los Angeles community seized it.</p>

<p>Yet I am most touched by the words of USC’s founder, Judge Widney, describing the scene during the construction of USC’s first building:</p>

<p>'The unfinished building in the middle of an empty field was a lonely looking object to those who only saw the present.</p>

<p>But for others, the curtains rolled aside, and they could see the coming centuries clearly before them, with the great possibilities standing in strong outlines that encouraged them to keep working.’</p>

<p>Keep working. Keep working. And they did. The Trojan Family kept working for 131 years to build a great national research university, brick by brick, building by building, achievement by achievement, gift by gift, generation after generation after generation. The Trojan Family did it, though. We all did it together, because we share our founder’s passion and love for this university. Judge Widney could not have imagined, in his wildest dreams, what USC is today – a rising global powerhouse in the cultivation of the human mind, body and spirit."</p>

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<p>Thanks for sharing SeattleTW! That’s awesome!</p>