The Crimson: Design School Seeks $110M in Campaign
By Matthew Q. Clarida, Amna H. Hashmi and Vimal S. Konduri, Harvard Crimson
The Graduate School of Design has raised more than $69 million thus far in its slice of Harvard’s $6.5 billion capital campaign, putting the school well on its way to meeting its goal of at least $110 million, John K. F. Irving ’83 said Saturday night. Irving, a co-chair of GSD’s fundraising efforts, was among the hundreds of alumni and affiliates who flocked to Cambridge for a two-day kick-off event, called “Grounded Visionaries,” to celebrate the launch of the public phase of the school’s campaign.
“That is a big, think big, audacious kind of goal,” Irving said. “Courses in landscape architecture and architecture have been present on the Harvard campus for over 100 years. And the total endowment after this time is $400 million. So that means in the next four years we are going to raise 25 percent of what it took us 100 years to do.”
GSD administrators have said that a top priority will be the student experience, achieved through enhancements in financial aid and funding for travel and conferences.
“We find there is a growing demand for diversity of enrichment experiences…. More international travel for research, more community development work, and more engagement in professional conferences,” said alumni co-chair Philip L. Harrison ’86, CEO of the well-known design firm Perkins+Will.
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