Annual Fund for the Graduate School of Education

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Three ways you can support outstanding future educators . . .

Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) is launching an unprecedented effort to raise $10 million in support of students preparing to be teachers or principals in the Bay Area’s urban schools. As part of the university’s $3 billion campaign launched September 19, 2008, GSE is seeking endowment gifts from its friends and alumni. Endowment gifts will help ensure that current and future professionals will be able to study at Berkeley, gaining the knowledge and tools that will empower some of our nation’s most talented and committed educators to work in our nation’s public schools.

Why are endowment gifts so important to GSE? Just as Berkeley’s private peers have endowments many times larger than Berkeley’s (Harvard’s $35 billion endowment is more than ten times larger), GSE’s scholarship endowments for aspiring educators are much smaller than those of our peer schools of education. Even considering the state support we receive, Berkeley’s financial resources lag far behind those of our private peers, seriously compromising our efforts to recruit the best and the brightest future educators to shore up our struggling schools.

Most of GSE’s students — among the most diverse at Berkeley — need financial support to become top educators and contribute to the public good. In most cases, they cannot depend on high salaries after graduation to pay back loans. Many are the first in their families to graduate from college and join a profession. Because our students have experienced first-hand the power of education in their own lives, they are usually eager to share it with young people from backgrounds similar to their own.
Berkeley’s capital campaign period is five years. If each of our GSE alums committed $200 annually throughout the duration of the campaign — for a total pledge of $1,000 over five years — we would reach our $10 million goal, securing an annual payout (5%) of $500,000 for support of future educators in perpetuity. Of course we know that some of our friends cannot give at exactly this level, and some can give more. But we urge all who know the value of supporting future educators to consider the most generous gift possible.

If you cannot consider a five-year endowment pledge at this time, you can still support GSE’s (and the university’s) capital campaign by making a gift to be used this year — either for the 2008-09 Scholarship Fund or for the GSE Annual Fund. A high rate of participation among our GSE alumni will inspire other donors to join in this important effort throughout the campaign period. Please note that all gifts to GSE will count toward annual membership in UC Berkeley’s new Charter Hill Society donor recognition program. Gifts to GSE can count toward Class Gifts if you so designate.
We appreciate your interest in this unprecedented effort and thank you on behalf of our outstanding future educators — and the thousands of California children, families, and communities they will serve — for your consideration of this special request.

Sincerely,

P. David Pearson, Dean

Three ways you can support aspiring educators . . .

Yes, I would like to make a five year campaign pledge to the Graduate School of Education's Endowed Scholarship Fund for Aspiring Teachers or Aspiring Principals Give on-line or print out the form (pdf) and mail a check or credit card payment.

I prefer to make a gift to the Graduate School of Education's Scholarship Fund. For gifts of $1,000 or more please provide the name of the scholarship – e.g., your name or the name of the person or organization you wish to honor. Give on-line or print out the form (pdf) and mail a check or credit card payment.

I prefer to make a gift to the Graduate School of Education's Annual Fund to be used this year for GSE initiatives to improve K-12 urban education. Give on-line or print out the form (pdf) and mail a check or credit card payment.

Thank you for your support!