Wescoe—
growing from $2,850,504 in 1960-61 to approximately $6.5 million in 1967-68 and 1968-69. During this span of nine years, more than $37 million has been given to the University or has been earned as income from endowment to add to our aspirations the extra reach of private support.
Among the unusual gifts to the University this year, I will mention only a few as example of the many; the Dr. David H. Wenrich memorial fund for purchase of special books in zoology; the Dr. C. F. Rumold Scholarship fund of $65,000; the Howard Fuqua Scholarship Fund of $50,000 for students in medicine; the Warren Bellows Endowed Professorship in Engineering; the Ellis B. Stouffer Endowed Professorship in Mathematics; the Grover Simpson Memorial Fund for a special laboratory and treatment center at the Medical Center for respiratory diseases; The Bessie Wilder bequest of $45,000 for scholarships; the Franklin E. Reed Memorial Scholarship Fund of $100,000; the James Hersberger gift of $125,000 to provide an all-weather track for the stadium; and, most significantly, the first gift to the program of the Colleges-Within-the-College, which holds as much promise for the future of the University as any other program launched within the nine-year period, the gift of $350,000 from Miss Irene Nunemaker to create the physical facilities for Nunemaker College.
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1969 KANSAN 7
The number of contributors to the University passed 17,000 this year compared to 10,642 nine years ago. In addition to providing endowment, they contributed $524,211 to the Greater University Fund, all of which can be spent in the year to come, this compared to a contribution of $341,000 in 1960-61.
One reason this University has been able to muster private support throughout its long history has been the unusual loyalty of its alumni. In 1960-61, 13,399 of them were members of their Alumni Association, with more than 5,000 of them life members or committed to a life membership program. This year 21,405 are members, with 11,237 life
members or installment life members.
These are the figures I present to you as my record of stewardship, and yet not all that has happened to the University can be expressed neatly in figures. There have been innovative programs like the Colleges-Within-the-College, the sponsored programs of academic assistance to Universities in Central and South America which developed after the outstanding record created by our pioneer program in Costa Rica, the development of interdisciplinary programs, the establishment of firm teaching and research bonds between two campuses.
Older programs have been expanded. To the junior year abroad program in Costa Rica have been added programs in Bonn, Germany; Bordeaux, France; and the Far East. To summer language institutes in Spain, France, and Germany have been added institutes in Mexico and Russia. This has been the great period of national recognition of student scholastic performance at KU, with four Rhodes Scholars, a Marshall Scholar, ten Danforth Fellows, and 141 Woodrow Wilson Fellows named from among the University's seniors.
The University of Kansas, at last has received the recognition it has deserved for many years, as one of the outstanding institutions of undergraduate education in the nation.
Our faculty has brought equal honor to themselves and to the University with presidencies of major academic organizations, with career development awards, with Sloan Research Fellowships and Guggenheim Fellowships, with Markle Scholarships and Fullbright Scholarships, with grants and prizes and medals. Our system of endowed professorships has grown to 19, and we have added to it two Regents Professorships and eight University Professorships from legislative appropriations.
The long concern of universities and of faculty for research and the pursuit of knowledge, which was intensified during this period by the availability of massive Federal funds, has resulted in natural strains on institutional loyalties and on classroom responsibilities. What was given to
universities and faculty members to enhance their abilities to pursue truth has exacted its price in distractions that have sometimes hindered their efforts to communicate their knowledge, skills, and methods. The processes that should have reinforced each other have, in a situation where resources and manpower were scarce, been occasionally in conflict. As I have told alumni groups across the country, one of my great sources of pride has been the fact that our faculty has a sense of institutional loyalty not matched in many institutions. Their commitment to teaching is firm, their availability to students is remarkable, their devotion to KU is as great as that of alumni and students.
We have been reminded, sometimes forcefully, that our basic business is teaching The reminder was hardly necessary; we have always though so. In the belief that the value of good teaching must constantly be reinforced, the University was able several years ago to initiate an