Kansas University Endowment Association officially unveiled “KU First: Investing in Excellence,” its campaign to raise $500 million, on Sept. 7, 2001.

Four days later, the world was a different place.

“The events of Sept. 11 really halted our fund-raising efforts for a good 30 to 45 days,” said Dale Seufering, the endowment’s executive vice president for development and director of the KU First campaign.

“The nation, I think, needed time to adjust its psyche to what had happened and to focus its charitable efforts where they were most needed,” he said.

For KU First, the next four months were tough. By late January, contributions went from the initial $280 million to $322 million.

“Before September 11th, the economy was already in a recession,” Seufering said. “So by the end of the year, people were not only dealing with Sept. 11, they were dealing with their own financial downturns as well. They weren’t looking at charitable giving because, frankly, the capital gains weren’t there to give.”

But things are getting better.

“We’re encouraged,” Seufering said. “The donor community is becoming more positive, and more focused on the ‘good’ that can be done. And with that has come a renewed interest in the institutions that can make good things happen.

“KU is certainly one of those institutions.”

Seufering predicted a “positive and upbeat” spring.

In late January, KU First began its committee-forming phase, during which alumni and schools throughout the university come together to explore needs and fund-raising possibilities.

“It’s to broaden our base of activity and to be more specific in our focus,” Seufering said.

KU First is the largest fund-raising campaign in the university’s 138-year history.

The campaign is scheduled to end in the fall of 2004.

Molding the future

The successes of KU First will define the university’s future. Already, work has begun  groundbreaking, at least  on a new engineering building, new quarters for radio station KANU, and a new entryway and landscaping at 15th and Iowa streets.

KU First left the starting blocks with a $280 million base, a combination of previous pledges and contributions raised during the campaign’s “quiet phase” and highlighted by the Hall Family Foundation’s pledging $42 million for life sciences, humanities and business.

Also, longtime benefactors Forrest Hoglund and his wife, Sally, contributed $7 million to building a new brain imaging center at KU Medical Center.

Forrest Hoglund is chairman of the campaign’s 18-member steering committee.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Since the Sept. 7 start of the campaign’s “public phase”:

 Dana and Sue Anderson pledged $8 million toward construction of a new athletics strength and conditioning center that will house weight training equipment, locker rooms and a cardiovascular workout area.

Longtime donors, the Andersons live in Los Angeles. Dana Anderson graduated from KU in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in business.

 Charley W. Oswald gave $6 million for the university’s department of economics, $1 million for the School of Business, and $3 million in unrestricted funds.

Oswald, who lives in Edina, Minn., graduated from KU in 1951. His gift is the endowment’s largest single outright contribution from an individual.

 Lester “Dusty” Loo and Katherine Haughey Loo pledged $1 million toward and gave $500,000 for a planned expansion of KU’s Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art.

Katherine Loo graduated in 1961. Dusty Loo graduated from KU in 1960. He died Dec. 25, 2001, two months after the couple’s gift was announced.

 Kansas City-based Sosland Foundation pledged $1 million for the recruitment of a director for the new Center for Urban Child Health at KU.

 The estate of James L. and Gladys B. Sharp bequeathed $5 million for scholarships and other unrestricted uses.

Though neither of the Sharps attended KU, the couple held KU in high regard. James Sharp, a certified public accountant, joined Boeing Aircraft in Wichita shortly after graduating from Kansas State University in 1933.

He died in 1999. Gladys Sharp died in 1984.

 The philanthropic arm of Topeka-based Capital Federal Savings pledged $2 million for the establishment of a distinguished professorship in finance at the KU School of Business.

The Capital Federal Foundation’s gift is expected to multiply with the help of the Kansas Partnership for Faculty of Distinction, a program established by the Legislature in 2000 that makes interest earned on the professorship eligible for matching support by the state.

 Robert and Elizabeth Malott of Kenilworth, Ill., pledged $1 million toward campus landscaping, including the new campus entrance at 15th and Iowa streets.

Robert Malott’s father, Deane, was chancellor from 1939 to 1951. Deane Malott, who died in 1996, made landscaping a priority at KU during his tenure. His wife, Eleanor, spearheaded planting efforts on campus, and was often seen in jeans and a straw hat watering trees.

“I think my father was sensitive to the need to enhance the beauty of the campus, and my mother responded immediately by assuming the responsibility for campus plantings,” Robert Malott said.

The new gateway at 15th and Iowa will include a curved, 70-foot-long stone wall with “The University of Kansas” printed on it. The entrance also will have trees, shrubs and a new brick plaza.

Robert Malott graduated from KU with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1948. He worked 40 years with FMC Corporation of Chicago, which manufactures chemicals, specialized machinery and military equipment. He was named president and CEO of the company in 1972 and chairman in 1973 before retiring in 1991.

Prior to the KU First campaign, the endowment association had conducted two other major fund-raisers. The most recent, “Campaign Kansas,” ran from 1987 to 1992 and raised $265.3 million, after an original goal of $100 million.

The earlier “Program for Progress” raised $21 million from 1966 to 1969.