The University of Massachusetts Boston started a campaign called Just Imagine. This campaign is an unprecedented $100 million fundraiser. Thanks to the donations of private corporations, private foundations, even staff and alumni, the campaign has already raised $57.3 Million. The Just Imagine Campaign has four pillars: promoting students success, building a research enterprise, enhancing the campus, and lastly annual support.
UMass Boston has so many plans and goals for the students as well as for the campus. This campaign is to enhance the campus: a campus with better resources and better equipment always leads to a better learning environment as well as a better learning experience. The goal of this campaign is to bring together a public university that has no limits to its research, teaching, and services, and to turn UMass Boston into a place where students have the opportunity for success and the resources to fulfill their passions.
“Just imagine a campus with facilities that are comparable to the excellent faculty that inhabit this place every day. An opportunity for learning and contribution can happen: it’s happened at UMass Boston” said Chancellor J. Keith Motley during the Just Imagine trailer “We need to recognize that we have a critical role in higher education in the region. and we all need to be a part of advancing the university”
The biggest part of the Just Imagine campaign is promoting student success: $50 million goes towards investing in students. The university wants to improve retention and graduation of the students by providing multiple outlets that will help multiple different types of students. The next big part of the campaign is building a research enterprise. The university will divide $30 million among research for science, cultural studies, environmental sustainability and many other things. Then $10 million will go into enhancing the UMass Boston campus itself. The 10 million will finance the construction of new buildings, providing more classrooms and labs. The last $10 million goes to Annual Support.
“Every day our students and faculty are imagining a brighter future. When the university’s donors meet them, they know they are doing much more than writing checks.” said Gina Cappello, the vice chancellor “Their contributions are a vital expression of hope for how higher education will transform lives.”
The Just Imagine Campaign is up and running to make UMass Boston a better university. The university is getting itself in a position to offer more to students and to prepare them better for the workforce. Just imagine in years to come UMass Boston will be one of the top universities in Boston, maybe in the whole New England.