Emily Hopkins of University Communications talked with Jan Rock Zubrow '77, chair of the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees and past co-chair of Far Above…The Campaign for Cornell, on the successes of the campaign. Over the next few weeks, the Chronicle will feature interviews with each of the campaign co-chairs.

Far Above…The Campaign for Cornell was launched in 2006 with the largest campaign goal in Cornell's history and one of the largest among U.S. universities: $4 billion in five years. What convinced you to serve as campaign co-chair?

What excited me most was that the initiatives we were funding -- faculty renewal, student scholarships -- would forever transform the university. Support for faculty means hiring the next generation of faculty that will lead this university, which in turn will hugely impact the kinds of research we do and the subjects we teach. I was excited about the campaign's potential to transform and evolve the university into something even better than it is today.

What are you personally most proud of, in your tenure as a co-chair of the campaign?

I'm extremely proud that we've had such broad participation by alumni. Gifts have come in smaller chunks than we may have expected initially. That means we've touched many people and have gotten them involved in this campaign. Having more people involved as we go forward will serve Cornell well in the future.

How did the major economic recession affect the campaign?

I think the recession had a short-term impact. New gifts and commitments slowed down. People were certainly willing to give to Cornell, but it tended to be more through currents gifts than longer term gifts to the endowment. That was helpful to the university because current funds were more important during the crisis. But alumni rose to the occasion -- they gave to the university as best they could, in areas where the university needed it.

How does Cornell attract the support of so many of its alumni?

What really sets Cornell apart is that we involve alumni in all sorts of aspects of the university. The Cornell University Council, for instance, is a unique structure, and I'm not aware of a peer institution that has such a large council. I also think Cornellians are lifelong learners, and they want to be associated with a university that's creating new knowledge.

Looking forward, what are you most excited about in Cornell's future?

We have the wind in our sails right now. Lots of people are excited about some of the audacious goals articulated in the university's strategic plan, a plan we didn't have when we launched the campaign.

Is the campaign over?

No, the campaign is definitely not over. We've got more work to do. We still have many programs in Ithaca that we want to fund. People are excited about the things that are happening on campus with faculty renewal, the types of students we're attracting, Gates Hall, the new Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, and the technology initiatives. So we definitely want to continue the campaign and even think about how we will transition this campaign to our sesquicentennial that's coming up in 2015.