100 by 100: The Centennial Campaign

Office of Development

Colin Kilpatrick Development Executive Director Helen Pattrin Development Staff

100 by 100: The Centennial Campaign Making a Gift Planned Giving Options Supporting the School The Walter Williams Society Contact Us

In September 2008, we will celebrate a milestone in the history of the Missouri School of Journalism...our centennial. As we near 100 we continue to be the global leader in journalism education that founding dean Walter Williams envisioned.

100 by 100: The Centennial Campaign for the Missouri School of Journalism is a focused effort to increase the School's endowment to $100 million by our 100th year. Strengthening our position as the world's pre-eminent school of journalism will require thoughtful investment by our alumni and friends. Unrestricted endowment gifts will ensure that future faculties and deans have the maximum ability to continue the tradition of innovation that has kept the School in the lead. Or, you may find one or more of the School's priorities worthy of your support.

The Marvin D. McQueen (BJ '36) Memorial Rotunda in Lee Hills Hall was created through the generosity of his son Angus, CEO of Ackerman McQueen in Oklahoma City.

Unrestricted Endowments Student Endowments Faculty Endowments Program Endowments Columbia Missourian Endowment Frequently-Asked Questions

If you would like information about supporting the 100 by 100 campaign, please contact the Missouri School of Journalism Office of Development.

Unrestricted Endowments

Two stone lions, a gift from the Chinese government in 1931, sit under the Journalism Arch.

Gifts to our endowment with no restrictions or limitations have the most profound impact on the School of Journalism. The singular purpose of an unrestricted endowment is to foster excellence at every level. And because an endowment exists in perpetuity, unrestricted funds will address needs and provide for opportunities that we cannot anticipate today.

Over the years, earnings from unrestricted endowments have allowed the School to capitalize on opportunities it otherwise would not have been able to pursue. These range from providing last-minute funds for Columbia Missourian students to travel to cover the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, to forging a training and research partnership with the Committee of Concerned Journalists, to leveraging the single largest gift in the University of Missouri's history: $31 million to create the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute in 2004.

Unrestricted endowment funds are particularly powerful because they give the School and its faculty the flexibility to pursue targets of opportunity that can further enrich the educational experiences of all students.

Student Endowments

Mary Paxton Keeley Class of 1910 1910: The School's first female graduate in 1910, Mary Paxton Keeley becomes the first female reporter in Kansas City and eventually returns to teach journalism at Christian College (now Columbia College).

Ashley Smith Naperville, Ill. "I was courted by other great journalism schools and was even offered a full ride at Howard, but I chose Missouri not only because of its great reputation but because I was offered an incredible financial aid package. My dream is to become a magazine editor, hopefully on an international level. I plan to study in the journalism school's London program next summer, and being a Walter Williams Scholar will give me an additional $1,000 in scholarship assistance for an international experience. I already am thrilled with my Mizzou experience, and I really look forward to the cachet of being a grad of the world's first and best school of journalism."

The Missouri School of Journalism is a highly sought-after destination school for students pursuing careers in journalism and strategic communication. More than 40 percent of our enrolled students are from outside the state of Missouri, and the reputation of the School continues to be the premier calling card for Mizzou: nearly one in four freshmen arrive on campus with the hope of attending the J-School.

Yet, because so many students pay out-of-state tuition and because the cost of higher education - even for public universities - continues to escalate, financing a college education can be challenging. Endowed scholarships and fellowships open doors to capable students with financial need and encourage outstanding students to choose the Missouri School of Journalism over other leading journalism programs. Scholarship support also motivates students to explore real-world opportunities through the School's New York, Washington, D.C. and study abroad programs.

Faculty Endowments

Geneva Overholser Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Journalism "I never dreamed, until I joined Mizzou, how good a journalism school could be. Both my colleagues and my students are extraordinary, and the collaboration among us - practice-oriented and research-oriented alike - is enormously rewarding and productive. Becoming a part of Mizzou has raised my hopes for the media's future."

G. Thomas Duffy 1984: Friends of G. Thomas Duffy, hard-driving reporter, editor and journalism school professor, donate an endowment in his name for student and faculty professional development.

The Missouri School of Journalism is known for the caliber of its faculty. Pulitzer Prize winners, leaders of news organizations and advertising agencies, and top researchers share their expertise with our students and provide them entry to professional opportunities that launch successful careers. Generations of Missouri journalism graduates attribute their ability to tell clear and persuasive stories to special professors who guided them in the newsroom and classroom.

Competitive salaries allow the School to attract internationally recognized professionals whose presence often creates a catalyst effect. For example, in 1996, a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation created an endowed chair in editing which helped to recruit Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jacqui Banaszynski to the School. Today, Professor Banaszynski directs the Knight Center for Editing Excellence, which stimulates teaching, outreach and research programs focused on the role of editors in newspapers. The Center also works with other universities, high schools and the newspaper industry to develop methods to attract talented young people into editing careers.

Program Endowments

The Missouri Method distinguishes us from all other schools of journalism. We published the University Missourian (now Columbia Missourian) on the day the School opened in 1908. Pictures of the Year International has become the gold standard of photojournalism contests. KBIA-FM, affiliated with NPR, is one of the top-rated noncommercial stations in the country. KOMU-TV is still the only network affiliate at which students report, produce and deliver the news. Magazine students design, research, write and edit for Vox, an award-winning weekly magazine supplement to the Missourian, and Global Journalist magazine, which reports on the state of press freedom and serves international journalists. And in 2005, we launched Mojo Ad as the nation's premier student-staffed, faculty-run communications agency with national clients, including Best Buy.

Students file out of Fisher Auditorium in Gannett Hall, constructed in 1977 with funds from the Gannett Foundation.

Programs of this caliber require an unwavering commitment to quality and a substantial investment, but the results speak for themselves. As we envision the next 100 years of journalism education, we seek to build endowments in order to ensure the financial health of all our programs and media outlets.

Columbia Missourian Endowment

Lee Hills Hall is dedicated in 1995 in honor of the former CEO of Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

The heart and soul of the School's editorial programs, the Columbia Missourian has served as the training ground for thousands of working journalists around the world for nearly a century. Today, the Missourian not only is a learning lab for aspiring journalists, but also an innovation incubator for the newspaper industry.

As newspapers grapple with industry changes from audience shifts to emerging media, the Missourian is uniquely positioned to explore new ways of gathering and disseminating information. Online and mobile content delivery, interactivity and competition for increasingly fragmented advertising revenue are driving our need to create new business models for the newspaper industry.

Accomplished faculty and researchers work side by side with bright young students who are familiar with digital concepts to create innovative prototypes. Furthermore, Columbia, Mo., a city of approximately 100,000, is in an ideally sized market to test these new approaches.

Gifts of all sizes to the Columbia Missourian Endowment will help to fully fund this teaching, learning and industry innovation laboratory and preserve the hallmark of the Missouri Method.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is an endowment different from regular annual giving?
An endowment acts as a savings account as opposed to a checking account. The original principal is invested with the rest of the University of Missouri's Balanced Pool of $944 million. Then the fund pays a fixed percentage of its annual value to a designated account each year, reinvesting additional earnings and building up the fund over time. Because the payout is typically 5 percent each year, the fund is set up to last forever.

Why are endowments important for a public institution?
Simply put, with less than 20 percent of the University's total budget coming from state funds, private support is critical to maintaining the quality of our hallmark Missouri Method. Equipment for our laboratory experiences - including the Columbia Missourian, KOMU-TV, KBIA-FM and Mojo Ad - and the ability to attract faculty with both industry and academic experience are dependent upon funding above and beyond state support, tuition and fees.

What do endowments support?
Scholarships, faculty resources, technology and operating support for our media laboratories all benefit from endowment earnings. And funds from endowments that are purely unrestricted allow the School to be flexible to meet its greatest needs and take advantage of unique opportunities.