Class Gift Campaign: Two Deans Challenge Students

[caption id="attachment_11720" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Illustration by Daniel Vasconcellos"][/caption]

As she prepares to head west to Smith College, Dean Kathleen McCartney is working to leave her successor a gift: a strong base of financial support for future students. And she hopes that HGSE's soon-to-be alumni will help lead the way.

McCartney has issued a challenge as part of the HGSE Fund's 2013 class gift campaign: If 80 percent of the class contributes, McCartney will contribute $2,013 in their honor. When Administrative Dean Jack Jennings heard of McCartney's plan, he offered to match her gift with $2,013 of his own, bringing the matching pledge total to $4,026.

"I was thrilled," says class gift committee chair Evan Walker, Ed.M.'13, of the double challenge pledge. "It's incredible to be so strongly supported by our top administrators. Students have been very humbled by the deans' generosity."

Last year, the class of 2012 achieved 76 percent participation in its class gift campaign, building on the success of the class of 2011, which achieved 67 percent participation. For the last four years, class gift funds have been earmarked for unrestricted financial aid, helping ensure that future classes will receive support for their studies at the Ed School. The gift campaign also involves a friendly competition among programs. In 2012, three master's cohorts — Higher Education, Learning and Teaching, and Special Studies — achieved 100 percent participation.

Throughout McCartney's time as dean, she has made financial aid a top priority, more than doubling aid for Ed.M. students, increasing guaranteed funding for Ed.D. students from one to five years, and ensuring three years of fellowship funding for Ed.L.D. students. McCartney praised donors who help cover the costs of an Ed School degree.

"No one pays the full cost of studying here," McCartney says, reminding students that the Ed School's endowment covers only about 30 percent of annual operating expenses.

Even with funding, a Harvard education doesn't come cheap, as McCartney says. "I know many of you have made significant financial sacrifices to study here," she wrote to students in a March appeal. This is why she also told students that it's not the size of the gift that matters — it's the act of giving.

McCartney urged alumni to join students in giving to the Ed School, saying, "If our 25,000 alumni each contributed $100 to the annual fund each year, we would have an additional $2.5 million in financial aid money." A gift of $50 or $100 may not seem like much, but the cumulative power of such gifts can be transformative, she says.