Fundraising

Peter Allard, a University of British Columbia alumnus, lawyer and investment manager, has donated $11.86 million to UBC’s Faculty of Law, the largest single donation in the school’s history.

Carleton University has announced the reinstatement of varsity football, beginning in the fall of 2013, more than a dozen years after the program was scrapped for financial reasons in 1998.

SAIT has received a $7-million donation from Stan Grad (a graduate from the school’s petroleum technology program) and his wife, to help meet its $75-million campaign target to build a new Trades and Technology Complex.

After two years of budget deficits approaching $2 million, Loyalist College has come in with a balanced budget, a $7 million reserve fund, and a 20% increase to its endowments. Some of the surplus will be invested in capital improvements, deferred maintenance, and equipment for the new Skills Centre, which opens this fall.

McGill University principal Heather Munroe-Blum addressed the Canadian Club of Montreal yesterday, declaring that PSE in the province "est au bord du précipice," thanks to "ineffective, indeed now perversely misaligned funding mechanisms" and the lowest per-student funding in Canada.

Victoria-based Royal Roads University announced last Thursday it has received $1.4 million in donations to its Robert Bateman Centre. This figure includes a $200,000 contribution from the Royal Bank of Canada, and gifts from 2 private individuals, who contributed $200,000 and $1 million, respectively.

According to a new report from the University of Waterloo, donations to the institution in 2008-09 totalled $53.3 million. Of that total, $26.1 million went to chairs and professorships, $9.5 million to research, and $5.1 million to scholarships. Two-thirds of donors (12,281) are classed as alumni, 528 as corporations and government, and 1,053 as faculty, staff, and retirees.

The Alberta government announced yesterday a $25-million grant to the University of Alberta to advance clean energy research.

Yesterday the federal government announced a $20-million investment to allow Ryerson University to transform part of the Maple Leaf Gardens into a new sports and recreation facility. Plans include an NHL-sized skating rink; a 4 lane, 200-metre running track; basketball and volleyball courts; a fitness centre; and a high-performance gym.

On Friday, Holland College kicked off its multimillion-dollar "Learning. For Life" capital campaign, the most ambitious fundraising effort in the college's 40-year history. The campaign has a priority focus in 4 critical areas: students; facilities; programs; and innovation. Over 75% of the campaign's original private-sector goal of $4 million has already been realized.