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If Jen Salter is nervous, she doesnt show it. With poise, precision and impressive balance, the first-year student from St. Albans outlines both sides of the pro life-pro choice debate as part of an "informational presentation" shes making to her honors speech class in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

She does such a good job, in fact, that neither her classmates nor professor Tom Patterson can divine her personal views on the controversial subject. "Thats a hard topic for a talk like this," Patterson tells Salter admiringly. "Very well done."

Pre-vet student Salter, who also was accepted at Cornell, is at UVM, in part, because she received merit aid as a Vermont scholar. "Cornell is a great school, but Ill be able to graduate from UVM debt-free," she says, adding that she "loves it here."

Attracting increasing numbers of talented students like Salter is a priority for UVM and a focus of the comprehensive fundraising campaign the board of trustees launched over the weekend, the second major fundraising campaign in the universitys history. The campaigns goal is to raise $250 million over the next six years, with merit and need based scholarships at the top of the list of initiatives to be funded.

The "case statement" for the campaign the document that establishes the priorities and projects funds will be used for lists three major goals: promoting academic excellence; enhancing the student experience; and responding to the needs of society.

Under those headings come a number of specifics, including: creating an expanded honors program; enhancing the universitys first-year program; increasing diversity among students faculty and staff; funding endowed faculty chairs; targeting environment and health as areas of excellence; enhancing the athletic program; and creating new facilities for students, including an expanded library and a student commons building.

"President Colodny and Provost Bramley are making some of the tough decisions needed to sharpen our academic and programmatic focus," says Ian deGroot, principal gifts officer. "We now need to begin investing in our areas of emphasis." deGroot, who will become interim vice president for development and alumni relations when current VP Jennifer McDonough leaves UVM at the end of October, adds: "This university has tremendous potential. The campaign will essentially burnish an institution that already has a lot going for it."

Playing catch-up
Don Honeman, admissions and financial aid director, would agree that UVMs considerable assets have stood it in good stead in recent years, but just barely. "Weve really had to play catch up with our competitors in the area of merit aid," he says. "The only reason were doing as well as we are is because of the attractiveness of UVM, Burlington and Vermont."

Merit aid has a proven track record at UVM of attracting high ability students, Honeman says. "Every time we make an investment in merit aid, there is a remarkable and measurable increase in the number of talented students we enroll."

A long-term recruitment plan drawn up by the admissions and provost's offices last winter sets out to lure 280 outstanding students over the next four years or 60 to 70 per year with merit aid. Those numbers, which are in line with what the capital campaign could fund, would "have a substantial impact on campus academic culture," according to the document.

Campaigning in a Down Economy
deGroot expresses no hesitation when asked about the advisability of launching the campaign in a down economy battered further by the events of Sept. 11. "Counterintuitively, philanthropy trends over time have not tracked closely with down economies," he says. UVM launched the public phase of its first campaign soon after the 1987 stock market crash at a time when 20 percent of higher ed capital campaigns were put on hold or canceled. Yet the campaign exceeded its goal of $100 million by its target date of December 1993.

People may take longer to pay off pledges in a recessionary economy, deGroot says, and donors may respond to fewer requests, making it critical to put forth a compelling case. "But large campaigns generally succeed or fail as a result of very few, very large gifts," he says. He anticipates that 95 percent of the campaign's funding will come from about 5 percent of its constituents. The monumental, inter-generational transfer of wealth that will occur in the next decade and beyond, he believes, will have a major impact on the UVM campaign.

Phase 1: Starting Now
The board of trustees' action over the weekend effectively launched Phase 1 of the three-phase campaign. A number of key actions will be taken during this six-to-eight month phase, including the refinement of the campaign's priorities and projects, the hiring of key personnel, the development of a communications plan, the allocation of budget for the full campaign, the solicitation of early leadership gifts and the refinement of the campaign plan.

A key component of Phase 1 is establishment of a national campaign steering committee, composed of board members, faculty, students, staff, parents, college and school boards of advisors and members of the Alumni Council. At the trustees' meeting, board chair Bruce Lisman was appointed chair of the committee, and Eugene and Joan Kalkin were named emeriti chairs. Other members will be selected in the coming months.

If UVM feels lucky to have students like Jen Salter in its midst and wants to increase their number in coming years, the feeling is mutual, as least for the Bellows Free Academy/St. Albans graduate. When shes not studying, shes hard at work trying to convince a friend from high school to transfer to UVM from Wells College in upstate New York.

She would "definitely like it here," says Salter.

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