{"id":4789,"date":"2022-04-21T02:24:20","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T02:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=4789"},"modified":"2022-04-21T02:24:20","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T02:24:20","slug":"howard-president-cites-records-in-fundraising-and-building-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/21\/howard-president-cites-records-in-fundraising-and-building-investments\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard President Cites Records in Fundraising and Building Investments"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Darreonna Davis and Breonna Randall
\n<\/strong>Howard University News Service
\n<\/strong>Guest Column<\/strong><\/p>\n

Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick cited records in everything from fundraising to construction investments on Thursday during his Spring 2022 State of the University Address.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea here is to make sure that we can have revitalized facilities that would provide a world-class experience for teaching, research and all types of scholarship activities,\u201d Frederick said as he detailed the recently announced\u00a0$785 million investment<\/a>\u00a0in new construction and major renovations. \u201cThis is construction that will take four to five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real-estate projects include developing core academic buildings, such as Miner Hall, which will soon house the School of Education and the Howard University Middle School for Math and Science; and the C.B. Powell Building, which will become part of the Health Sciences Complex. Howard University Hospital will be expanded into an academic center for medical students.<\/p>\n

The plan will also include a STEM Center; the construction of the Center for Arts and Communications; and an additional 1,200 beds for student housing with increased space for recreation and wellness \u2013 issues that were at the forefront of the university\u2019s longest-running\u00a0protest<\/a>,\u00a0which occurred last semester. These additions will be part of Sherman Avenue student housing and the Fusion Building at the Wonder Plaza on Georgia Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more on-campus housing availability the better,\u201d said Jade Dedrick, a graduating senior majoring in TV\/Film who lives off campus. \u201cIt will be very beneficial to Howard students that either can\u2019t afford to live off campus or would just prefer to be on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frederick said that Howard received $255 million in tax abatements from the Washington, D.C., government toward the real estate projects and that the university plans to issue $300 million in fixed-rate taxable bonds. Other funding comes from fundraising and donations. For fiscal year 2021, the university raised $177 million, the most in Howard\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat record-breaking growth, I think, in our fundraising is important,\u201d Frederick said. \u201cWe have to start thinking about comprehensive fundraising campaigns and where we set that bar. It\u2019s probably going to be transformative for HBCUs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The university has set a goal of having a $1 billion endowment, which would be a first among HBCUs. Frederick proudly proclaimed that Howard will be able to do this despite putting $80 million into the pension plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make sure that our retirees \u2013 at the time that the pandemic hit \u2013 did not have a concern about the security of their pension,\u201d the president said. \u201cSo, our pension plan is now funded at about 109%.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the pension funding, salaries for full-time faculty have increased 21 percent. Frederick said he had no issue increasing the salaries of tenured faculty nor the economics of the deal between unionized adjunct faculty and the university.<\/p>\n

All of these decisions and investments, combined with donations, have bolstered the financial state of the university, Frederick said, especially at a time of global economic uncertainty. In addition, the university received $344 million in its federal appropriation toward operations \u2014 $100 million of which is dedicated to the Howard University Hospital.<\/p>\n

Frederick said the development projects will take four to five years, which is beyond the time in which he plans to retire from his role as the university\u2019s 17th president, an\u00a0announcement<\/a>\u00a0he made on April 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for him, because I feel like he\u2019s done a lot of great work,\u201d said Allison Bryant, the assistant dean of the School of Business. \u201cI\u2019m sure he has to be tired, and we\u2019re really excited to see what the end of his tenure shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the rising COVID-19 cases on campus and the university\u2019s pivot to\u00a0remote learning<\/a>\u00a0for the last two weeks of the academic year, the State of the University address was delivered in the School of Business auditorium with very few audience members. The live stream can be found on\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Darreonna Davis and Breonna Randall are reporters for HUNewsService.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Darreonna Davis and Breonna Randall Howard University News Service Guest Column Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick cited records in everything from fundraising to construction investments on Thursday during his Spring 2022 State of the University Address. \u201cThe idea here is to make sure that we can have revitalized facilities that would provide a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[116],"class_list":["post-4789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4790,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789\/revisions\/4790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4789"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=4789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}