The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point launched its first-ever capital campaign April 30, with a goal of raising $30 million by June 30, 2019.
“We’re here tonight to celebrate the future, to toast the possibilities. This campaign is about our shared dreams and what we can accomplish together,” Chancellor Bernie Patterson said at an event to kick off the campaign.
Already, more than $17 million in commitments and gifts have been made toward this goal, he said, in the quiet phase of the campaign that began in 2013. A $4 million donation from Sentry Insurance in March is the cornerstone gift. It will endow two faculty positions in the College of Letters and Science and the College of Professional Studies, and help create a new major in data analytics, a needed area in information technology and business. Two additional $2 million gifts endowed faculty positions in the College of Natural Resources.
Lon Roberts, a 1970 graduate of UW-Stevens Point and president of the UWSP Foundation Board, is the campaign chair. He and his wife, Mary, announced Saturday they would provide a deferred estate gift “sufficient to endow a faculty position in the School of Business and Economics” at UW-Stevens Point.
The couple also are providing a gift now to establish an endowed scholarship in memory of Mary Robert’s nephew, Steven F. Schreiner. He graduated from UW-Stevens Point in 2008 and worked as a medical technician at Marshfield Clinic. He died in 2014.
“UW System is a jewel in the crown of the state,” Roberts said. “Any success we’ve had in our lives traces back to the university.”
That theme was echoed throughout the evening as current students and notable alumni spoke of the life-changing opportunities they experienced and the life-long connections they made while at
UW-Stevens Point. Among those featured were Academy Award winning director Peggy Rajski, actress Kathy Kinney and brand marketing executive Cindy Ratzlaff, all of whom attended UW-Stevens Point in the 1970s.
“The campaign is about preparing the university and our students for what comes next. It’s about student success,” Patterson said. “We are asking those who love this university to move from donating to investing.”
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