Campaign Impact Newsletter - Endowment

GROWING THE ENDOWMENT: AN INVESTMENT FOR GOOD

A MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT HARRY J. ELAM, JR.

With six months still remaining in The Oxy Campaign For Good, we have manifold reasons to be grateful to the Occidental community for your support. Chief among these is your generosity, which has propelled us past our initial $225 million fundraising goal more than a year before the campaign’s close. One of the most consequential results of that success is that Oxy’s endowment has climbed past $500 million for the first time and now stands at nearly $600 million. This is certainly a significant milestone. Now we must scale even greater heights. The continued growth of Oxy’s endowment is critical to our ability to achieve the fullest expression of our mission. To cite just one example: In line with our commitment to meet the demonstrated financial need of every admitted student, we aspire to one day offer a financial aid program that eliminates student loans, as some of our peer institutions have been able to do. With your partnership, we will build our endowment further in service to our strong commitment to equity and access.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COLLEGE ENDOWMENT

A robust and growing endowment drives the College forward and is essential to ensuring Occidental’s excellence and long-term financial stability by reducing its dependence on tuition revenues. That’s why building our endowment has been one of the primary objectives of The Oxy Campaign For Good. Cambridge Associates manages our endowment in partnership with the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees, following a diversified investment approach that seeks long-term growth over time. Our primary aim is to preserve and grow the principal balance of each of the funds contributed to the endowment, in order to maintain the purchasing power of these gifts for today and for future generations.

Thus, the endowment ensures a permanent, reliable source of income that enables our institution to weather financial uncertainties or downturns in the economy. Endowment funds provide vital support for every aspect of Oxy’s operations—student support, faculty recruitment and retention, staff programs, resources, and curriculum. Every contribution to Occidental’s endowment is a lasting investment in the future of our institution.

OXY’S ENDOWMENT AT A GLANCE

Oxy’s ability to deliver a high-touch academic experience has been made possible for more than a century by the revenue generated from our endowment. But as the costs of providing an intimate, immersive Oxy education have grown, endowed funds now cover just 16% of our expenditures and our reliance on tuition revenue has increased. Only philanthropy can build our endowment and enable Oxy to reduce our dependence on student tuition.

OPERATING BUDGET: FY21/22 REVENUES

Total Budget: $115.7M

77% Enrollment-based Revenues $88.8M

16% Endowment $18.8M

4% Oxy Fund $4.7M

3% Other Income $3.4M

DISTRIBUTION OF ENDOWMENT DESIGNATIONS

47.3% Scholarships

16.8% Unrestricted for Greatest Need

12.9% Professorships

11.8% Academic Program and Research

3.4% Library

2.1% Undergraduate Research

5.7% Other

Occidental’s endowment is composed of many individual funds that are pooled and invested with specific financial goals in mind. The College uses interest income generated by the funds, up to a defined percentage. Because the endowment is intended to provide a stable source of income, the College maintains a policy of spending between 4.4% and 4.9% of average endowment balances over a rolling five-year period. This smooths out highs and lows created by the investment market, generating a more predictable flow of income and long-term financial stability.

HOW DOES OXY COMPARE?

Building our endowment will give Oxy an important edge as we compete for top faculty and students. Currently, many of our peer institutions have endowments at least twice the size of Oxy’s. That financial advantage enables them, for example, to provide students with financial aid that does not rely on student loans. Strengthening our endowment will ensure that we can continue to compete for the nation’s most talented students, regardless of their backgrounds.

ENDOWMENT SIZES OF THE TOP 50 LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES

Includes Vassar and Oberlin

Includes Occidental, Scripps & Union

Includes Skidmore, Harvey Mudd and Bates

Includes Pitzer

The Campaign For Good’s remarkable success should inspire us all to recognize the opportunity now before us. If our passionate alumni and supporters think big and demonstrate leadership through meaningful gifts to the endowment, we can ensure that a transformative Oxy education is accessible to all, in perpetuity.”

- Lisa H. Link P’18, chair, Board of Trustees

OPENING THE DOOR TO A COMPLETE OXY EXPERIENCE

Endowed scholarships are essential in our efforts to bring talented, creative students to Oxy from across California and around the world. But beyond attracting those students to Oxy, scholarships ensure that they can take full advantage of the Oxy experience immersing themselves in research opportunities and campus life, and taking advantage of all Los Angeles has to offer.

Consider Edin Custo ’23, who came to Oxy from Bosnia and Herzegovina, with his tuition, room, board and expenses fully covered by scholarship support. Custo says his attending Oxy would have been impossible otherwise; his family needed to take out a loan to cover his airfare to Los Angeles for his freshman year. “I’m so thankful that I don’t have to rely financially on my parents, who had already done so much for me,” he says. “I will be eternally grateful for the support Oxy has provided.”

Custo has made the most of his time at Oxy. As a Fletcher Jones Scholar, he has conducted research under the mentorship of Associate Professor of Chemistry Emmanuelle Despagnet-Ayoub, exploring how chemical synthesis could lead to new alternatives for energy storage. He is a member of the Muslim Student Association. And he has paid his good fortune forward, forging connections with other international students as co-director of Oxy’s International Student Organization.

And although he has worked part-time jobs in order to earn spending money, the financial stability offered by his scholarships has enabled him to have a full college experience – attending movies, cycling, and exploring Southern California.

Custo says his experience speaks volumes about Oxy’s mission. “It says to me that Oxy really wants to draw as diverse a group of students as possible, and that the institution is dedicated to the community it’s in, and to serving that community.”

76% of Oxy students receive financial aid

Tuition, Room and Board and Fees

$77,896 before aid

Average Grant/Scholarship

$35,469

FOR ACCESS

Through June 2022, our generous supporters directed nearly $92.8 million to scholarship support during The Campaign For Good well on our way to our overall goal of $100 million For Access. That extraordinary giving will strengthen Oxy in many ways for years to come. One of the most visible and meaningful benefits will be bolstering student financial aid. Currently, 76% of Oxy students receive financial aid, and the average aid package is more than $43,500 per student. Building additional endowed scholarship support will go a long way toward ensuring that promising students can comfortably cover the cost of tuition at Oxy currently $77,896 regardless of their financial means.

ACCESS FOSTERS EXCELLENCE

FOR ACCESS Financial Aid Endowment

93%

Goal: $100M

Gifts to Date: $92.8M

For over 130 years, Oxy has challenged students to question their assumptions, broaden their horizons and be comfortable with complexity and change. This requires exposure to a wide range of perspectives and opinions, in and out of the classroom. The achievements of Oxy graduates in many fields powerfully demonstrate that access fosters excellence, and the critical importance of bringing gifted students from all walks of life to Oxy. Our commitment to admitting students from all backgrounds is not just part of our mission but a core value shared across campus. We are proud to be a leader among our peer institutions in supporting access for the brightest students, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds. Oxy is one of fewer than 100 colleges and universities nationwide that meet the demonstrated financial need of every student.

FINANCIAL AID AND THE ENDOWMENT

Building endowed funds for scholarships will directly strengthen Oxy’s ability to attract outstanding students regardless of their financial means. Currently, over 75% of the funding for scholarships comes from the operating budget, while just 21% comes from endowed funds. Our goal is to provide students with financial aid packages that rely on scholarships and relieve them of the burden of student loans they must eventually repay.

FINANCIAL AID BUDGET FUNDING SOURCES

75.7% Operating Budget

21.4% Distribution from Endowed Scholarships

2.3% Current Use Scholarships

0.6% SEOG Scholarships

AVERAGE FINANCIAL AID PACKAGE BREAKDOWN

• $35,469 Average Grant/Scholarship

• $11,673 Average Loan

• $ 3,747 Average Work Study

GROWING THE ENDOWMENT FOR DISTINCTION

A defining characteristic of an Oxy education is the powerful bond that our students form with their professors as teachers, mentors, and advisers. That’s why raising funds to support faculty has been a core priority of The Campaign For Good. We have made enormous progress, raising nearly $38.5 million in the past six years. Those funds have endowed professorships in the arts, humanities, and sciences, and they will fuel the continued evolution of our curriculum. Now we must build on that momentum, particularly because nearly one-third of Oxy’s senior faculty will retire in the next decade. The need to invest in the next generation of outstanding Oxy faculty members — the researchers and scholars who will shape the curriculum and our institution for decades to come — is urgent. Expanding the number of endowed professorships will make the College more attractive to promising young professors and support them throughout their tenure at Oxy.

EMPOWERING OXY’S FACULTY

A recent gift from Michael G. Gibby ’68 and Barbara J. Gibby ’68 exemplifies the impact that endowed gifts can have for Oxy faculty members and their academic departments.

The Gibbys marked the occasion of their 50th reunion by generously funding an endowed professorship. Inspired by the quality of the education they had received as students — particularly in the sciences and math — the couple included a wonderful, if unusual, stipulation for their gift. While most endowed faculty chairs are meant to be used in one academic discipline, the Gibbys decided that funds from their gift could be used to support the work of a professor who has achieved distinction in any one of a range of fields across the sciences, biology, chemistry, computer science, and mathematics.

As Barbara Gibby puts it: “We wanted to do something where it really makes a difference.”

The following year, Margi Rusmore, an internationally recognized structural geologist, was chosen for the honor of serving as Oxy’s first Michael G. Gibby ’68 and Barbara J. Gibby ’68 Professor of Science. Rusmore, a member of the Oxy faculty since 1985, studies the evolution and growth of continental margins with a focus on the mountain ranges of western North America. She says endowed chairs like hers are a demonstration of the supportive environment that Oxy provides for faculty, which in turn inspires professors to build upon Oxy’s “culture of caring about our students.”

The Gibby Chair is one of just five endowed professorships in the sciences at Oxy, and the Gibbys have made clear their wish to inspire fellow Oxy supporters. Says Mike Gibby, “We are hoping others will go and do likewise.”

Faculty are the heart and soul of our institution, and when we have donors who support that notion, it really does make a difference. Their generosity allows us to fund the size and quality of the faculty we need. In the same way that gifts that enhance our physical buildings enhance the College’s durability and excellence, endowed professorships create a foundation for the College and move Oxy forward for the future.”

- Margi Rusmore, Michael G. Gibby ’68 and Barbara J. Gibby ’68 Professor of Science

A MEASURE OF TRUST

To Gloria Duffy ’75, The Campaign For Good is much more than the name of Occidental’s current fundraising initiative.

“The phrase ‘For Good,’” she observes, “is a very active statement about what a liberal arts education can do, and about Oxy’s particular approach. Oxy educates young people and helps them see how they can contribute to the improvement of society — how their knowledge, education, and skills can be focused and turned toward the common good.”

That belief, along with Duffy’s strong conviction that Oxy was critical in preparing her for her own long career in international diplomacy, nonprofit management, and business, are among the reasons she has been such a generous supporter of the College.

“I’m so happy to give back, and I want to assist students who want to make a positive difference,” she says. “I know Oxy will expose them to a variety of skills and a range of fields that will help them think broadly and discover how they can be agents for good change in our society.”

Much of Duffy’s philanthropic support has gone to augment endowed funds, building resources that Oxy leadership can devote to the College’s greatest needs. “I’m happy to have decisions about where my funds are most needed on an annual basis in the hands of the president and administration,” she explains. “They’re the best judges of where the need is greatest at any given point of time.”

That measure of trust in Oxy’s leadership has only been enhanced by Duffy’s perspective as a longtime member of the Oxy Board of Trustees. “Harry Elam is doing a wonderful job as president, and Oxy has a tradition of selecting very capable leaders who will responsibly steward its resources and assets,” she says. “So I’m very confident in Oxy’s ability to manage and steward resources well.”

Trustee Anne Cannon ’74, co-chair of The Campaign For Good, is Oxy’s largest living individual donor. Her latest contribution was a multimillion-dollar estate gift that will establish an unrestricted endowment to help fund the College’s greatest needs. “Quite honestly, I am blown away by what Oxy alumni contribute to the world,” Cannon said. “I just want to do my part to help ensure Oxy’s ability to continue to provide an outstanding liberal arts education to future generations.”

At the time, Steve Rountree ’71, past chair of the Board of Trustees, noted the importance of Cannon’s gift being unrestricted: “Anne’s giving will have a sustained and positive impact on Oxy’s commitment to academic excellence, providing essential and flexible funding for innovative programs and curricular offerings, thereby strengthening our ability to recruit and retain talented students and faculty.”

ENDOWED FUND GIVING OPPORTUNITIES

Endowed funds are a powerful tool that enable us to create a strong foundation from which to sustain and promote the mission, vision, and values of Oxy’s distinctive liberal arts education. Your partnership makes it possible for us to maintain our standard of excellence in a number of critical areas and provide continued support for scholarships, academic and research programs, and faculty resources.

$100K FINANCIAL AID FUND

Your endowed gift would create a named fund designated for financial aid support for one student each year in perpetuity.

$250K ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Your support for an endowed Gateway Scholarship would provide one named scholarship for one student per year in perpetuity.

$500K ENDOWED DEPARTMENT CHAIR

Your gift would create an endowed fund to provide funding for priorities of the department.

$1 MILLION CORNERSTONE SCHOLARSHIP

Your investment in an endowed Cornerstone Scholarship would provide a named scholarship for one student from each class, for a total of four students each year, in perpetuity.

$2.5 MILLION ENDOWED FACULTY CHAIR

Your generosity would create a named existing professorship within your preferred area.

JOIN THE CHALLENGE

Among the exciting giving opportunities at Oxy are the Edgerton-Occidental Endowed Merit Scholarship and the Studenmund Endowed Professorship, which will be officially established once they reach their fundraising goals.

EDGERTON-OCCIDENTAL CHALLENGE

For many middle-income families, private liberal arts colleges are out of reach: Their earnings are too high to qualify for federal grants, yet not high enough to cover full tuition. The Edgerton-Occidental scholarship, which has already raised nearly $4 million toward our $6.4 million goal, will support exceptional middleclass California students who otherwise could not afford to attend Oxy.

STUDENMUND ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP

Economist A.H. “Woody” Studenmund is not only Oxy’s longest-serving faculty member but also one of our most beloved. In honor of his recent retirement, this fund will permanently support a faculty position in the Economics Department, ensuring that future professors will carry on the dynamic teaching for which Woody was known. We are well over halfway to our 3 million dollar goal.

To learn more about endowed fund giving opportunities, please contact Zeke Segerstrom at zsegerstrom@oxy.edu, or visit campaign.oxy.edu/giving.