In 2003, the University of Illinois launched the quiet phase of the largest capital campaign in its history, a bold $2.25 billion fundraising endeavor that will positively transform the future of this institution. Within a year of my arrival at the University of Illinois College of Law, we joined the University by entering into the largest fundraising endeavor in the history of the College of Law. We began our $50 million — Agenda for Excellence Campaign — by focusing on the components that make a great law school — people and programs.
For more than a century the University of Illinois has taught the principles of leadership to generations of students who have gone on to positions of power and influence within government, the judiciary, the private bar, business, legal aid organizations, and education. At the core of the law school's educational philosophy has been the conviction that it takes leaders to teach leaders, and the College has long boasted a faculty dedicated to research and scholarship that is both theoretically rigorous and practically influential. For decades, the College has been renowned for shaping the terms of contemporary social, political, and legal debates, its faculty writing field-defining books from which others have learned and publishing articles that have positively influenced the distribution of legal rights, duties, and liberties by legislators and judges.
The question of the day is whether the College's second century will be like its first. Will the College of Law sustain its historic standing amongst the nation's elite law schools? Will its faculty continue to dominate entire fields of law? Will it continue to out-compete other schools for the best and brightest students? Will it continue to merit its reputation as a place of academic rigor and intellectual vitality? And will it continue to seed positions of leadership within our society with ambitious, visionary, ethically-conscious, critical thinkers who conceive of law as a profession, rather than a business?
These perplexing questions are the foundation from which we built our Agenda for Excellence Campaign. The capital raised during this campaign aims to offset the dwindling level of support from the State of Illinois — now at 12% of our annual operating budget — as well as to advance us forward by targeting funding for student aid, attracting and retaining leading faculty, and providing funds for novel curricular programs.
A $50 million goal for a public law school is very ambitious indeed. However, I am very pleased to report that over the past four years, we have raised $23 million or 46% of our goal in outright, pledged, and planned gifts. Now it is time to ask each of you to participate in helping us achieve the ambitious agenda we have set for ourselves by supporting the College of Law in whatever way you are able. You are the history and the lifeblood of this fine institution, and I have confidence that you will take up the charge of sustaining our vision for the future.
For the support you have provided and what we hope you will provide in the future, we are eternally grateful.
Jeff D. Coates
Assistant Dean for Development & Alumni Relations
