Dear Chapman Family,
I hope that this email finds you well. Parent Spring Summit is off to a great start as we welcome more than 500 families to campus, a record for this event. I also want to provide everyone with an update about the State of the University, including some historic announcements that we made during today’s event.
State of the University Recap
At the State of the University, we highlighted some of the many successes from the past year, including showcasing student and alumni achievements from across our schools and colleges. Provost Mike Ibba talked about our continued growth in academic excellence, focusing on our exceptional faculty and the teaching and research they do. We celebrated key partnerships in the community, including a conversation with leaders from Bank of America that was moderated by Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff Amy Rogan-Mehta. And Executive Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer Jessica Berger provided exciting updates on our comprehensive campaign – Inspire: The Campaign for Chapman University – including several impactful gifts of a million dollars or more. We also celebrated two significant 10-year anniversaries: the Musco Center for the Arts and the Hilbert Museum of California Art. In short, the state of Chapman University is incredibly strong, and our collective work continues to fuel our exciting trajectory.
A Transformational $25.5 Million Gift
Also at the event, we announced a $25.5 million gift by longtime Chapman supporter and philanthropist Christine Cross. This is one of the largest gifts in Chapman’s history. $20 million will create the Christine E. Cross Endowed Scholarship to help remove financial barriers and provide access to a Chapman education for the best and brightest students. This is the largest gift for student scholarships that Chapman has ever received. $5.5 million will endow Chapman’s summer music programs – hereafter named the Lloyd & Elisabeth Klein Legacy Music Camps – which bring talented high school students to our Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music each year. With these transformational gifts and her previous generosity, Christine’s total commitment to Chapman is more than $35.5 million. We are so grateful to Christine for her vision, her dedication to Chapman, and for providing such incredible support to ensure that future students will flourish.
An Extraordinary $10 Million Gift to the Fowler School of Engineering
We also announced an extraordinary $10 million endowment gift from Chapman parents Amy and Jad Duncan to advance the Fowler School of Engineering. This remarkable gift creates and endows opportunities that will support enhanced student programming and visionary academic leadership. I look forward to sharing more details soon. Ultimately, the gift strengthens Chapman’s commitment to personalized education by more deeply embedding experiential learning at the Fowler School. It also builds upon our hands-on, industry-connected infrastructure, while also supporting exceptional faculty who mentor, challenge, and prepare our students for the demands of the 21st century workforce. We are incredibly grateful to the Duncans for this transformational gift for the Fowler School of Engineering. Their gift and Christine Cross’s generous gifts bring the total for the Inspire campaign to more than $480 million toward our $500 million goal.
$1 Billion Endowment
In recent years, Chapman has prioritized growing its endowment to provide dedicated funding and support for students and faculty. In fact, almost 70% of our endowment is dedicated to student scholarship support to provide the financial resources to recruit and matriculate the best and brightest students who might not otherwise be able to afford a Chapman education. Ten years ago, our endowment was around $300 million. Today, I was proud to announce that for the first time in its history, Chapman’s endowment has surpassed $1 billion. We are grateful to the donors whose generous support has helped build our endowment over the years. And we are proud of this significant milestone and, more importantly, of all the financial support it will provide to our students and faculty in the years ahead.
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These are exciting times at Chapman, and I am confident that so much more success lies ahead for us. I look forward to working with all of you to deepen our mission and elevate this great university to new heights. Thank you for all that you do for Chapman.
Best,
Matt