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Dr. Ronald P. Sexton
Bruce C. Parker
Marilynn Miller
Kathie Riggs
| MSU Billings Foundation Celebrates Spectacular Conclusion of "People, Pride & Promise: Campaign for Excellence”
$30,163,696 RAISED– EXCEEDING $21 MILLION GOAL
The staff at the Montana State
University Billings Foundation usually doesn’t have far to
look for reasons to celebrate. The greater-Billings
community is generous and has a long history of support for
the university.
This month, however, the MSUB
Foundation found 30 million reasons to celebrate.
Thirty-million, one-hundred-sixty-three-thousand,
six-hundred and ninety-six reasons, to be precise, totaling
a spectacular conclusion to the largest volunteer
fund-raising effort in the university’s history.
Today, the MSUB Foundation announced
the official results of “People, Pride & Promise: The
Campaign for Excellence at Montana State University
Billings,” which exceeded its $21 million goal by raising $30,163,696.
The five-year campaign was launched in
January 2002 to raise money for scholarships, capital
improvements, and to build endowments for academic
programs. The campaign was spearheaded by a 55-member
National Campaign Leadership Council, and was chaired by
Bruce Parker, senior vice president and banking group
manager for First Interstate Bank, Billings. They, along
with a broad base of support from alumni, businesses,
friends of the university, and campus supporters, propelled
the campaign over the top of what many considered an already
ambitious goal.
“The groundswell of support we received
from the community and alumni across the nation is nothing
short of gratifying,” said Parker. “Higher education
changes lives, and the generosity shown during this campaign
demonstrates broad support for MSU Billings and how it
delivers on this promise. People understand that the
economic vitality of our state and region will be greatly
enhanced by a vibrant university in Montana’s largest city.”
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The wide-reaching support for the
campaign was indicative of how important MSU Billings is to
our community, state and region, said MSUB Chancellor Dr.
Ronald P. Sexton: “The partnerships developed through this
campaign are phenomenal and will serve the university for
many, many years. The interest demonstrated by business,
industry, health care providers, builders, financial
institutions and others continues to grow at very positive
rates.”Campaign Chairman Bruce Parker agrees:
“Beyond the dollars, serving as a catalyst for growth of
these partnerships perhaps is the greatest accomplishment of
this capital campaign.” Chancellor Sexton, a member of the
campaign’s Steering Committee and its National Campaign
Leadership Council, said the campaign was initiated to
benefit everyone on campus—students, faculty and staff—as
well as the community, through scholarships, expanded
academic programs, new and renovated classrooms and
laboratories, auxiliary space and athletic facilities, and
by creating a foundation of invested endowment dollars to
produce annual income for faculty and staff to meet changing
needs and to respond to exciting opportunities as they arise
in future years. “Students need a dynamic, up-to-date
learning environment to compete successfully in an
increasingly smaller and interwoven global community,”
Sexton emphasized. “We must continue to provide the best
possible physical and technology-oriented learning
environments to support our academic programs,” adding this
campaign will help the university do just that.The most visible changes brought about
by the campaign will be the physical improvements to the
main campus and to the MSU Billings College of Technology
through new construction, renovation and enhancements.
These capital improvements, said Marilynn Miller, president
and CEO of the MSUB Foundation, enhance the academic,
athletic, and cultural opportunities of MSU Billings,
attract students, and serve the community: “The infusion of
capital by generous donors will help MSU Billings fulfill
its potential as an exceptional, comprehensive urban
university in a number of locations—on the main campus, the
west end College of Technology, the Downtown Campus, Red
Lodge and beyond. Growth in academic programs, student
services, cutting-edge technology and research promises an
exciting future for the university.”Because scholarships are an important
key to attracting top students and are essential to making a
university education possible for students who are not able
to fully afford the costs, one of the main components of the
campaign was to dedicate dollars to an increased number of
scholarships, said Kathie Riggs, foundation campaign
director: “Students cite scholarships as one of the top
five factors they consider when choosing a college, so
providing bright, motivated students with the opportunity
for a first-rate education at MSU Billings is of paramount
importance to us.” Reflecting on the hard work of the past
five years, Riggs gives credit to “an enormous number of
volunteers, both alumni and non-alumni, who were critical to
the success of the campaign; their continuing engagement
promises to sustain vitality in future years.”Dave Warne, an alumnus of the
university and chairman of the MSUB Foundation Board of
Trustees, has a lifelong affinity with the campus. His
father, Dr. Earl Warne, is a beloved former professor of
education who taught here for three decades, giving Dave a
strong respect for the history of the university, which is
celebrating its 80th year in 2007, a point not
lost on the professor’s son, now a successful Billings
businessman. The university’s long history of serving its
students with excellence by providing first-rate educational
opportunities is what made the campaign popular with so
many, said Dave: “The People, Pride and Promise Campaign
would not have been successful had it not had a quality
product to promote--Montana State University Billings.” The
fine quality of education that was true 80 years ago remains
so, today, he added. “Over $30 million will testify to
that!”
With deepest gratitude to the following individuals for
leading the historic People, Pride & Promise campaign to success.
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