At a recent retreat held for Brandeis students, faculty and staff, Prof. Irving Epstein (CHEM) was asked to name the one thing he would change about Brandeis. Without hesitation, he responded that he wished he could "quadruple the endowment."Is Brandeis really in need of money? The Board of Trustees seemed to think so, and in 2001 started the Campaign for Brandeis, an initiative that sought to actively lobby Brandeis alumni and other potential donors in hope of raising $470 million by late June of this year. This goal has since been met and the donations have come in with such momentum that the goal was expanded to $770 million by 2009. The gross of donations intended to be put towards academic facilities, endowment and operating costs, was over $528 million by this February administrators said.

These capital campaigns have led to many changes and future changes at Brandeis. Among the most highly anticipated additions to the campus is the new $154 million Carl Shapiro Science Center.

This new center will replace buildings that Chief Operation Officer Peter French called some of "the oldest academic buildings on campus."

"We cannot sustain our science program in these inadequate facilities," French told the Justice.

The new center will include updated teaching facilities, state-of-the-art laboratories and a design that will allow for future expansion.

Susan Krinsky, the associate vice president for the campaign, said such fundraising is necessary to improve the experiences of Brandeis students and the University's reputation.

"We are not a Harvard or Wellesley, with an endowment numbering in the multi-billions," Krinsky said. "We're just not old enough to have that sort of endowment."

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that as of last June, Harvard, founded in 1636, had an endowment of $25.4 billion; Wellesley, founded in 1870, had an endowment of $1.2 billion. Brandeis, founded in 1948, had a respectable but relatively diminutive $519 million.

Krinsky said by the time the first alumni graduated from Brandeis in 1952, 80 percent of the endowments at schools like Wellesley or Harvard had already been accumulated.

"The difference is that those schools have had more latitude to make high-yield, high-risk investments over the past 54 years, as opposed to Brandeis, a growing university, which has had to be conservative to simply maintain an operating budget and keep facilities up," Krinsky said.

In terms of the addition of facilities, the campaign can be accounted for in visible ways. Carl and Ruth Shapiro, the University's most prominent donors, gave $22 million in 2000 to fund construction of the Shapiro Campus Center. The couple gave another $25 million for the new science center. $10 million of the campaign's proceeds is earmarked for the Edmond J. Safra Center for the Arts, a building University administrators said will triple the amount of space available on campus for the teaching of fine arts and art history. Six million dollars of the total also went to help fund construction of the Village Quad.

Prof. Emeritus Orrie Friedman (CHEM), has pledged $3.5 million toward the hiring and equipping a chair in chemistry.

Seattle businessman Samuel Stroum donated $22 million to the campaign, and has also given $10 million towards the Brandeis University Scholarship Program and $4.8 million to the Waltham Scholars Program.

Some donations toward the campaign have come from successful benefactors who did not matriculate from Brandeis, but have had direct involvement with the University or Waltham, financial reports show.

Krinsky said the composition of the $495 million is interesting when broken down, particularly when considering that the campaign began in 2001, a year of economic decline in the United States.

Krinsky said that 19 donors made gifts of over $1 million and that the three largest contributions total $95 million, which accounts for 19 percent of the $495 million.

Professors responded to the efforts with realistic approbation. Prof. Robert Meyer (PHYS) said he has "the greatest respect for those who successfully raise funds for the University."

"I think that their record in at least the past 10 years has been outstanding," he said. "The University is now on a sound financial footing."

Meyer said he views the school's status with a balanced perspective.

"I think that the University does its absolute best to provide the educational resources needed," he said. "When you say 'all resources they need' the word 'all' implies a lot. No matter how much is given, one can always enumerate more needs."

Prof. Michael Gilmore, the chair of the English department, does not believe that campaign will solve all of the University's problems.

"I'm not sure that any university in the United States receives the maximum resources to fulfill its mission," Gilmore said. "Every department in Brandeis, and many departments in the humanities, feel that they could use more resources."

Students' reactions to the campaign are more varied and more critical. Thomas Smith-Vaughn '06, a politics and economics major said he has mixed feelings.

"Brandeis' ability to provide aid impacted my decision to come here," he said. But he also said that "school pride seems to be lacking" and that if he could he would "have something built that brought the Brandeis community together more."

Hannah Chalew '09, a prospective sociology and fine arts major, also said she feels that while donations do make a difference, a lot more could be done.

"I have benefited from Brandeis' ability to offer scholarships, and they actually gave me a generous amount considering my situation," Chalew said. "The generosity actually influenced my decision to come here. I wouldn't have been able to come here, or any school of this quality without it." Still, like Smith-Vaughn, Chalew said she sees many of the University's shortcomings could be easily fixed with more fundraising.

"I feel as if the arts here aren't as well funded or as well promoted as they could be," she said. "We don't have the facilities to compete with other schools in the New England area."

She said that the "aesthetic" quality of the campus is also a major concern in drawing students, and that some money should be allocated to making the University more visually appealing.

"It's really just not an aesthetically pleasing campus and after seeing Ivy League schools I find that it's just not nearly as beautiful or appealing," she said. "Usdan for instance, is a brick monolith." She said she would appreciate more new buildings like the Shapiro Campus Center to give the campus a "more modern feel."

University President Jehuda Reinharz acknowledged that there still is a need for the University to grow, particularly regarding scholarships and improvements in facilities.

"Brandeis is committed to accepting students on the basis of ability and talent, not family wealth," Reinharz said. "A significant majority of undergraduates receive financial aid, and the University's ability to maintain an academically talented and broadly diverse undergraduate student body depends on our ability to meet students' calculated financial need for a Brandeis education."

Reinharz also mentioned the merits of providing money for the science department, highlighting a new $300 million campaign to raise money for the new science complex.

"Brandeis enjoys special strengths in the sciences and has a distinguished faculty doing research at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines," Reinharz said. "Science is expensive and getting more expensive every day.The investment in science is timely and imperative."

Aaron Gaynor '07, director of Student Union affairs, holds a position that offers him exposure to financial decisions made by University administrators. He said any criticism of the three-pronged method of distributing University funds to the campus, the endowment and the operating budget is unfair. He said that "the good people in budget and planning know the best use for the fund" and that "it's OK that the bulk of the Campaign for Brandeis is going toward these three areas because they create the greatest overall effect for the University."



Justin Sulsky contributed to this article.