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Dear university colleague:
With the third quarter of the fiscal year wrapping up, I’m pleased to share an update on the OSU Foundation’s partnership with you — our university leaders, including coaches and those who hold endowed faculty positions. Since my December update, we’ve been on the road, engaging our community of more than 200,000 alumni.
In early March, President Jayathi Murthy and I traveled to Asia with our colleagues from INTO OSU. We visited Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta and Taipei. Asia matters greatly to OSU. Outside the United States, this region is home to more Oregon State alumni than anywhere else in the world. In addition to student recruitment visits, meetings with partner universities and media engagements, the OSU Foundation hosted receptions for alumni, donors, parents of current students as well as prospective students and their families.
OSUF’s mission by the numbers
I. Inspire investment – Donors have given $1.66B toward the Believe It campaign
We continue to be on track to meet our fiscal year goals. At the end of February, our fiscal year-to-date totaled $124.8M toward our baseline goal of $160M or stretch goal of $195M.
Our total for the Believe It fundraising and engagement campaign stands at $1.66B toward our $1.75B goal.
II. Engage our community – Successful events from NYC to Seattle to Asia
One of the many ways that we engage our community – and steward and inspire our donors, alumni, parents and friends – is through events.
Highlights from the winter and early spring included:
- Our trip to Asia (detailed above)
- “Believe It: An Evening with OSU Faculty” campaign road show in Seattle
- Ford Family Foundation reception
- Reception in New York City
- Donor reception prior to the OSU Provost’s Lecture featuring Harry Smith
- Dam Good Connections in the Bay Area
- Today's Student Success Donor Society virtual event
Our biggest engagement opportunity of the year is Dam Proud Day on April 29 (see my postscript).
Follow the OSU Foundation on LinkedIn to make sure you see event recaps and engagement highlights.
III. Steward resources – Endowment continues to hit record highs
Our endowment market value was at its highest point in the history of the OSU Foundation at the end of February (the most recent available data), at $1.1B. Our endowment crossed the $1 billion milestone for the first time in June 2025 and has held steady since, thanks to generous gifts from our donor community and strategic leadership by the OSU Foundation’s Investment Committee and our outsourced CIO.
Our Lifetime Trustee Celebration took place on the Thursday evening of our winter board meeting. We were honored to have several current Lifetime Trustees join us to celebrate this year's honorees. Pictured here, from left to right: Russ Kuhns, ’68; Patricia Valian Reser, ’60, ’19 (Hon. Ph.D.); Connie Kearney, ’65; me; honoree Celia Austin, ’76; honoree Tad Davies, MBA ’78; Roy N. Gaussoin, ’56; President Jayathi Murthy; Bert E. Loughmiller, ’64; Suzanne P. McGrath, ’70; Cheryl Miller Lutz, ’72; and Sally Ross Plumley, ’61. View photos and videos from the event.
Recapping our winter board meetings
The winter meeting for the OSU Foundation Board of Trustees occurred in Newberg from February 26-27.
The goals for this meeting included:
- Student success: To help us better understand and support Oregon State University’s goal to achieve an 80% six-year graduation rate by 2030, our agenda included spotlights on initiatives in the College of Engineering and the College of Business; updates on the university’s Finish in Four initiative; and insights from a panel of Student Alumni Ambassadors.
- Lifetime Trustees: We honored three new Lifetime Trustees with the OSU Foundation Board of Trustees’ highest recognition for volunteer leaders: Celia Austin, ’76; Ruth Beyer, ’77; and Tad Davies, MBA ’78. See the full list of recipients.
- And lastly, OSU Football: Over lunch, we were inspired by our new Head Football Coach JaMarcus Shephard. Here’s a look at what he shared with us.
Special thanks to Board Chair Dave Underriner, ’81, for his leadership. We are also grateful to the following university leaders for participating in our meetings: Jayathi Murthy, Roy Haggerty, Carla Hoʻā, Dan Larson, Prem Mathew, Rob Odom and Tim Carroll.
Our OSU Alumni Association Board of Directors also met this quarter. The meeting took place at the OSU Portland Center from January 29–30. The meeting's intentional focus on OSU's presence and opportunities in Portland – home to over 62,000 alumni – included:
- Student success: We learned about Access OSU's collaboration with REAP and Portland Public Schools to help students imagine a future at OSU and strengthen community-rooted pathways to college.
- Community: We joined fellow donors and volunteers at the Foundation's sold-out event celebrating the Portland Art Museum’s new Mark Rothko Pavilion.
In addition to our Three States that Matter Most strategy (Oregon, Washington and California), we’ve made a commitment to host annual events in Washington, D.C., and New York, as we have growing, younger communities in each city. On March 26, over 100 alumni, donors and friends joined us at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC) for a reception celebrating OSU and Oregon’s world-class wine industry. Special thanks to President Murthy and Professor James Osborne for speaking, as well as OSU alumnus Rick Noble, inaugural PAC NYC director of production, for welcoming us to the space. View photos from the event.
Implementing our strategic plans
As you can infer from this update, there are many ways the OSU Foundation and the Believe It campaign directly support the university’s goals in Prosperity Widely Shared.
Here are a few additional highlights:
I. Oregon State will be a university focused on big discoveries that drive big solutions – “Doubling research expenditures”
We are partnering with the Office of the Provost on a fourth Provost’s Faculty Match program, designed to incentivize the creation of endowed faculty position funds that support the university’s priority research areas (climate science, clean energy, biotechnology and integrated health, and robotics). So far 17 donors have made gifts of $250,000 or more, totaling over $9.87M. (We now have a total of 210 endowed faculty position funds at OSU and will celebrate 37 new holders at the annual Faculty Excellence Celebration in May.)
II. Oregon State will be a university where every student graduates – “Increasing six-year graduation rates to 80%”
I am grateful to our donors who are giving generously to support our students. As of December 31, donors had given $387.26M toward our $500M campaign goal for student success (77% of goal). This includes $12.7M for the university’s Finish in Four initiative.
We were pleased that our Student Success Donor Society members were among the most satisfied in our recent donor survey. This group of 900+ donors, who have each supported OSU students with cumulative gifts of $50,000 or more, are the most likely group to continue to support student success in the future. This fiscal year, we’ve built digital onboarding experiences for this society and enhanced our communications. This morning, we hosted our second virtual event for this audience.
III. Oregon State will be a university that fuels a thriving world in every dimension – “Become a force for economic growth in our state”
Thanks to everyone who advocated alongside the Beaver Caucus prior to and during the last legislative session. The Oregon State Legislature approved $42M in state‑backed bonds to bring a dedicated Student Health and Recreation Center to OSU-Cascades. This legislative session also resulted in zero cuts to higher education or OSU Extension despite the threat of significant reductions at the beginning of the session.
The OSU Foundation has also been proud to partner with the Office of Economic Development and Industry Relations and OSU-Cascades as the vision for the Innovation District takes shape. With environmental remediation complete and essential infrastructure installed, the site is now pad-ready for future construction. In the coming weeks, proposals from prospective development partners will help guide the next phase of progress. While vertical construction is still approximately two years away, important groundwork is already underway. The team is advancing key programmatic elements, including partnerships with regional economic development organizations and the creation of an Energy Innovation Center that will drive research, workforce development and long-term regional impact.
In Corvallis, the Jen-Hsun Huang and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex, opening in 2027, is a key differentiator for Oregon, providing world-class facilities for research and training. The university anticipates announcing the inaugural director this spring.
We are grateful to longtime Oregon State supporters Wayne and Marta von Borstel for their $3 million gift to support Oregon State women's basketball, combining current use and endowed gifts to support the program now and in the future. The investment strengthens the ability of Head Coach Scott Rueck and Oregon State to recruit, retain and develop student-athletes as the Beavers prepare to re-enter the Pac-12 in 2026-27.
News
OSU is studying the energy potential of superhot rock found miles underground with support from Quaise Energy. Brian Tattitch, the Barrow Family Chair in Mineral Resource Geology – established by Donna and Kenneth Barrow, ’77 – leads the Experimental Deep Geothermal Energy lab in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.
With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, College of Health faculty have developed a mentoring approach where faculty learn from students and students learn from each other.
A broad coalition of donors and industry partners have helped to stabilize the Open Source Lab in the College of Engineering.
Support from donors and the SURE Science Program in the College of Science is advancing research about a chemical process linked with Alzheimer’s disease, paving the way toward new treatments and possibly even reversal of some brain damage.
2025 Distinguished Alumni Legacy Award winner John Oades, College of Agricultural Sciences, ’68, co-founded the Future Agricultural Educators Endowment, which supports OSU students preparing to teach in Oregon schools.
Jonathan Kalodimos, the Harley and Brigitte Smith Fellow in the College of Business, has developed an AI-assisted tool to help faculty thoroughly and fairly evaluate oral presentations.
Memorialized with one of OSU’s most beloved research forests, businesswoman and philanthropist Mary McDonald made her first gift to Oregon Agricultural College 100 years ago.
The skeleton of a blue whale that washed up on the Oregon Coast in 2015 will go on permanent display at Hatfield Marine Science Center in May, more than 10 years after researchers at OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute began working to preserve the skeleton for public display and education, with support from donors and community volunteers.
The strong partnership between the university’s leadership, the OSU Foundation and our volunteers is unique and doesn’t “just happen.” We work at it, align our goals and develop joint strategies. Thank you all for engaging in this important work.
Thank you
Thank you for the many ways you strengthen Oregon State University and partner with the OSU Foundation. As we head into the final quarter of the academic and fiscal year, take a moment to explore this “Top 10” list of ways to be part of the Believe It campaign and continue building momentum for OSU.
Sincerely,
Shawn L. Scoville
President & CEO
P.S. Dam Proud Day, our giving day, will take place on April 29, marking our largest engagement opportunity of the year. We are grateful to your teams for partnering with us on this important tradition, which began in 2019 to inspire giving and engagement from Beavs all over the world. Dam Proud Day brings visibility to the depth and breadth of the university, highlights that gifts of all sizes make a difference, and supports OSU students above all else.
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