For college fund raisers, one bright spot in the economic doldrums is that it is easier to talk with potential donors about their deaths. As donors worry about outliving their assets, fund raisers find success--and often bigger donations--in asking them for bequests. Many college fund raisers have raised the subject of bequests more actively with…

Feniosky Pena-Mora may be the epitome of the new college dean. No longer middle managers with an inward-facing focus on academics, deans such as Mr. Pena-Mora, who leads Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, are stepping off their campuses to fill the roles of college ambassador, chief visionary, and major fund raiser.…

Fifteen years ago, the Australian state of Queensland was famous more for its beaches than for its brain power. Fellow Australians thought of Queenslanders as miners, farmers, or surfers, not as professors or scientists. When Queensland announced in 1998 that it was planning to become a "Smart State," or a knowledge economy, locals…

In autumn, most colleges' football fields are covered with a thick carpet of grass or artificial turf and are adorned with yard lines. But the football field at Paul Quinn College was carved up by plowing and planting. This past fall, portions of the college's gridiron were covered with sweet potatoes, watermelons, peppers, rosemary, and sugar…

Even in good times, philanthropy's road warriors spend much of their time traveling to clients' campuses to help plan megacampaigns or improve giving programs. But now, as the stock market stumbles and the country's financial system gets an extreme makeover, demand for their presence has gone up, as college administrators and trustees look for…

Strengthened by a healthy year-end finish in 2007, private giving to colleges and universities remained strong in the 2008 fiscal year, according to a report released last week by the Council for Aid to Education. The past few months have battered hopes that this trend will continue, at least in the next couple of years. Colleges brought in an…

The author shares the story of La-Keya Williams, a junior at Spelman College who has found a donor willing to help her out for the funds she needed to continue her education. Shortly after classes ended last summer, Ms. Williams realized she would have a hard time coming up with the roughly $36,000 needed to pay for her junior year. She took a…

In the late 1960s, Kent E. Dove, a new fund raiser at Indiana University, spent so many evenings at the home of his colleague Curtis R. Simic. The two junior fund raisers would talk into the wee hours about how they'd do things differently, if only they were in charge of raising money for their alma mater. Now, more than 40 years later, that's…

After years of growth and predictions that fund raising for higher education would escape the brunt of the economic crash, the recession has started to affect colleges' efforts to raise money, according to a survey by "The Chronicle" and Moody's Investors Service. Predictions are that 2009 may be an even tougher year for fund raisers, with…

After several years of aggressive hiring, some college fund-raising operations are now cutting back as both revenue and investment income fall. The regrouping could slow growth plans on many campuses at a time when the need for private support has never been greater. Often the colleges cutting employees are laying off back-office staff members and…

Blue State Digital, the company that helped catapult Barack Obama into the White House, is courting colleges. Some are welcoming the political rainmaker inside their wrought-iron gates. But some skeptics question whether what works in the digital war room of a political campaign can translate into the academic arena. The world of college fund…

The economy's collapse has caught up with the billion-dollar campaign. In the past 12 months, the amount of money raised by a dozen of the colleges engaged in higher education's biggest fund-raising campaigns fell 32 percent from the year before. The decline, which started before the worst of the recession, has forced colleges to postpone…

Despite tough economic times, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte hopes to win trustees' approval to raise funds to field a Division I-AA football team. Athletics officials and supporters at Charlotte are hopeful that they will raise the more than $45-million in capital expenses necessary to get the program up and running. However, the…

The nation's biggest athletics departments are quietly trying to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for separate sports endowments, heating up the competition for donors and raising questions about institutional priorities during the economic crunch. At least eight programs hope to bring in more than $100-million each to defray the rising costs…

As a dental student 35 years ago, Leo E. Rouse and his Howard University classmates learned to fill cavities and cap teeth by crowding around one faculty member and angling for a clear view of the day's demonstration. Today students at Howard's College of Dentistry, where Dr. Rouse is now the dean, get an unobstructed view of dental procedures…