Letter: Invent the Future campaign is on target

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006 | 7:48 a.m.

The recent Las Vegas Sun article on the UNLV Foundation and UNLV's Invent the Future campaign illustrated the importance of private funding to the success of higher education. We are very proud of our progress. Not only is the glass half full - it's two-thirds full.

Invent the Future is an aggressive attempt to ensure the availability of resources to UNLV, an emerging research university, by raising $500 million in private contributions. Without private support, we cannot attract and retain leading researchers, faculty and students, or support the programs vital to our success. We are confident that the campaign is on track to meet its goal - approximately two-thirds of the way into the campaign, we are two-thirds of the way to $500 million.

As UNLV president and the co-chairman of Invent the Future, we have worked closely with the management of the UNLV Foundation. We are confident the foundation is following the fundraising standards of the Nevada System of Higher Education. We are extremely grateful to those people who have honored UNLV in their estates, and believe we are well within the 30 percent bequest reporting guidelines, based on our end-of-campaign goal.

In late 2008, when the campaign officially concludes, friends, alumni and businesses will have committed hundreds of millions of dollars in private money for higher education, and UNLV will be on a trajectory toward greater levels of public-private partnerships. People throughout our community are already strengthening their relationships with UNLV, embracing it as their university, as they invest their time, attention and effort into inventing its future.

We are profoundly proud of everyone involved with the Invent the Future campaign, and sincerely thank the community for its growing confidence and inspirational support.

David B. Ashley and Don Snyder, Las Vegas

Editor's note: The writers are, respectively, president of UNLV and co-chairman of Invent the Future.