A week ago, I sent a message to the broader campus community with some updates from Advancement, and I wanted to make sure I followed up with this group as we start to advance our work around the academic portion of the campaign. Rob is incredibly excited to expand interdisciplinary opportunities at our university. Advancement's primary responsibility during the campaign is going to be fundraising, but I wanted to reinforce that we plan to be a resource for all of you before and during that time.
Here's a few more details on what we're planning over the next few months:
- I made a public commitment at the last Faculty Council meeting to engage our faculty around how we do philanthropy at DePaul. I was really struck by the number of attendees who said they wanted to help fundraise for transformative programming at the university but didn't feel comfortable with the basics of HOW we do this. Our division is going to be hosting several engagement sessions to share our thinking behind what makes ideas attractive to donors. We expect to finalize the curriculum in early October with the Provost's approval and will roll out opportunities for your colleagues shortly after.
- We're also going to be preparing for feasibility studies between now and the end of the academic year. When Rob became president at DePaul, he promised a completely different vision than his predecessors that involved poverty, sustainability, and artificial intelligence. With these priorities settled, we believe that the best way to accomplish this goal is to take it directly to your faculty members: to identify leaders in these areas, convene them for regular productive sessions, and to make formal recommendations for review by test populations of donors and supporters. Not only will this enable us to match Rob's accelerated timeline, we believe that it is also the process that will give you and your colleagues the most say in how the campaign is supposed to look (which in turn will give us better material for prospective donors!). More details will be made available to all of you soon!
- Finally, as I've shared previously, we are advancing our Pod support system to provide support to each academic unit. We've recently made staffing changes that will almost fully staff the inter-department teams we're creating. I want to thank Dean Sulin Ba for being willing to let us use Driehaus as a test case for this initiative; other teams will start to be solidified as we approach the holidays.
Again, I want to promise that we'll be a resource for you and your colleagues over the next few months. Please feel free to reach out if you would like clarifications or have any questions. I have confirmed with Salma to present at the Dean's Council meeting on October 24, and I'm always more than happy to talk before then.