The Campaign for NJIT Nears $85 Million in Gifts

NEWARK – November 7, 1997 -- The Campaign for New Jersey Institute of Technology: Design for the Future has reached the $85 million mark, thanks in part to several gifts exceeding $1 million, according to Saul K. Fenster, president of NJIT.

"NJIT’s history of partnering with business and industry has clearly strengthened the campaign’s ability to raise substantial sums of money from the private sector," said Fenster. "The size of individual gifts is a resounding vote of confidence in NJIT’s design for the future. Many distinguished benefactors are recognizing that NJIT is educating a workforce and conducting research that will help drive the regional and national economy well into the next century."

The Campaign for NJIT: Design for the Future is a seven-year, $120 million fundraising campaign, the largest and most ambitious in NJIT's 116-year history. To date, the university has raised more than $42 million in public funds and nearly $43 million in private funds. The Campaign is focused on adding to the public research university's endowment by $25 million. The Campaign Cabinet and University Board of Trustees and Board of Overseers plan to raise an additional $35 million by the year 2001.

Among the key gifts are:

• An anonymous $6 million bequest from the widow of an NJIT alumnus.
• $1 million from National Starch and Chemical Company to support scholarships. Company President and CEO James A. Kennedy serves as Chair of NJIT’s Board of Overseers and as an NJIT Trustee.
• $1 million from AT&T to support scholarships and NJIT’s Multi-lifecycle Engineering Research Center.
• $1.06 million in stock from alumnus Frank Hurlburt and his wife Jean. Half of the gift will support scholarships and half will be used to fund a professorship in management. Hurlburt is a member of the NJIT class of 1935.
• An anonymous gift of a limited partnership interest in a public corporation valued at $1 million.
• A $790,000 bequest from the estate of Judith Fay Ross, whose late husband Albert Ross was a laboratory supervisor in NJIT's Department of Electrical Engineering, to support graduate fellowships.
• A $500,000 pledge from Victor A. Pelson, ’59, Director and Senior Advisor of Dillon, Reade & Co., Inc., and chairman of the NJIT Board of Trustees.
• $500, 000 from Panasonic to support NJIT’s Multi-lifecycle Engineering Center.
• A $250,000 pledge from Seymour "Zoom" Fleischer to support scholar-athletes at NJIT.
• $250,000 from the Mobil Foundation to fund scholarships for students historically underrepresented in science and technology. Raymond J. McGowan, ’64, President of Mobil Chemical Company and a member of the NJIT Board of Overseers, made a personal contribution of $50,000 to the Campaign.
• $150,000 from Schering-Plough Corporation for scholarships. John Nine, President of Technical Operations at the Pharmaceutical Division at Schering-Plough, sits on the NJIT Board of Overseers.
• $100,000 from Hoechst Celanese Companies towards the university's Building Sciences Challenge, a component of The Campaign for NJIT. President and CEO Thomas F. Kennedy sits on the NJIT Board of Overseers.
• $75,000 from Turner Construction to support the Building Sciences Challenge.
• $75,000 from Foster Wheeler Corporation to support the Building Sciences Challenge.
• A $50,000 pledge from Dendrite International to support a scholarship in Computer and Information Science. President John Bailye serves on the NJIT Board of Overseers.
• A $50,000 pledge from Alumnus Leonard Rubin, '44, to establish a named scholarship.
• A Cray Supercomputer from Fuji Capital.

NJIT is a public research university enrolling nearly 8,200 undergraduate, master's and doctoral students in 72 degree programs through its five colleges: Newark College of Engineering, School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, the School of Management and the Albert Dorman Honors College. Research initiatives include manufacturing, microelectronics, transportation, computer science, solar astrophysics, environmental engineering and science, and architecture and building science. U.S. News and World Report's 1998 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT among the top 120 national universities. Money Magazine's Best College Buys 1998 rated NJIT as the sixth best value among U.S. science and technology colleges and universities. -end-