With $1.3 Billion Pledged, FAS Campaign Over Halfway to Goal

UPDATED: March 31, 2014, at 4:47 p.m.

The Harvard Campaign for Arts and Sciences raised a little more than half of its $2.5 billion fundraising goal as of the end of February, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith wrote in an email to the Faculty Monday morning.

The $1.3 billion in commitments pledged by donors thus far includes gifts raised during the public phase of the campaign, which began in October 2013, as well as those collected in the previous two-and-a-half-year “silent phase.”

“I am pleased to say that we are on track for where we hoped to be at this point,” Smith wrote in his email, which was forwarded to students and the rest of the FAS community by Dean for Administration and Finance of FAS Leslie A. Kirwan ’79 later on Monday morning.

Note: The $450 million in funding allocated for the SEAS priority overlaps with that of other priorities. By Ariane Litalien

In his announcement, Smith also included progress updates, as of the end of February, on the three largest of six FAS campaign priorities.

More than half of the $600 million goal for the “Faculty and the Scholarly Enterprise” priority, which includes funding for graduate fellowships, faculty chairs, and faculty-led initiatives, has been achieved, Smith wrote, noting $378 million in signed agreements.

Donors have pledged nearly half, or $267 million, of the $600 million goal of the financial aid priority. Finally, nearly 58 percent of the FAS campaign's $500 million goal for its “House Renewal and the Student Experience” priority has been fulfilled, with $120 million for House Renewal and $169 million for international travel, athletics, public service, and other student activities.

“These results show that our Campaign has built momentum, which was a critically important goal for the first six months,” Smith wrote.

By Y. Kit Wu

He noted, however, that these figures do not represent cash that the University can spend but simply pledges by donors. Most of the contributions so far are in the form of signed agreements from donors, but verbal commitments account for about $70 million of funds raised.

The email marks the first time since the campaign’s launch that an announcement including this kind of financial detail has been made to the community. Campaign co-chairs announced at the October launch that they had raised a little more than $1 billion up to that point.

Smith declined to comment on the update. He has not spoken with The Crimson in an on-the-record interview since the launch.

"Dean Smith wanted to mark the six month anniversary of the launch of the Campaign for Arts and Sciences by updating the faculty on the results to date," FAS spokesperson Jeff Neal wrote in a statement. "I expect the dean will want to update the faculty from time to time on this and other critical FAS priorities and will be doing so in the coming years."

Neal also noted that each school within FAS may share news within their community as they seem fit. "For instance, Dean [Donald H.] Pfister is considering whether to include a very brief update on the FAS campaign progress in an upcoming email to College students."

College students received Smith's update on the campaign on Monday morning after it was forwarded to them by Kirwan.

—Staff writer Dev A. Patel can be reached at dev.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @dev_a_patel.

—Staff writer Steven R. Watros can be reached at steven.watros@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveWatros.