Emily Hudspeth, a senior at Wake Forest University, writes about her inspiration from Professor Paul Pauca at the Wake Will campaign that was rolled out Friday. (Wesley Young/Journal)

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Wake Forest University and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center on Friday announced a campaign to raise and invest $1 billion over the next five years, providing more money for scholarships, endowments and building improvements.

To give a little razzle-dazzle to the rollout, the university held a celebration on Manchester Plaza that featured food for students and guests, interactive exhibits to show off university highlights, and the showing of a promotional video in the darkened portion of a big tent that had students guessing what was up all week.

The campaign, called Wake Will: The Campaign for Wake Forest, is the largest fundraising effort the university has ever carried out. Of the money raised, $600 million will be earmarked for the university and $400 million for the medical center.

Wake Forest University President Nathan Hatch said the effort has been under way since 2010, when the campaign was in a quiet phase that focused on major donors, including $80 million contributed by university trustees. Now that the campaign has gone public, Hatch said, the university will try to involve everyone connected with the Wake world of alumni, students, faculty and others who care about the university.

The fundraising on the university side has reached $315 million, while Wake Forest Baptist has raised $133 million on its side. Once the medical center reaches 50 percent of its $400 million goal, officials said, the medical center will roll out its own part of the campaign.

University officials said the campaign is needed because the university is competing against other universities that have far more money. They said that the university does not now have the money it needs to both preserve what is best and make improvements in the areas lagging behind.

Unfortunately, capital does make a difference in the students we can admit, the student experience, faculty recruitment and retention and our national ranking, officials said on the website devoted to the drive.

The university plans to earmark more than $190 million for student scholarships and debt relief, more than $130 million for endowed faculty chairs, professorships and other resources, and more than $280 million to upgrade buildings and faculty and student programming.

Hu Womack, an outreach and instruction librarian at Wake Forest, was pumped up about $12 million that would be spent to make improvements at the library: construction of a new entrance to give students better access, a larger special collections area, more study spaces and study rooms.

Continued here:
University, medical center announce $1B fundraising campaign