Lifelong healthy living, thanks to you
°®¶¹´«Ã½ has an ambitious goal of being one of the healthiest universities in the country. Parent donors help us get there.
Parents' gifts to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund provided essential startup funding for a Mental Health First Aid initiative that benefits the entire University community. °®¶¹´«Ã½ now has critical support to train staff in:
- Decreasing the stigma of mental health
- Raising awareness of mental health resources on campus for faculty, staff and students
- Recognizing signs, symptoms and risk factors for mental illnesses and addictions
- Assisting individuals in distress
Thank you to all donors who give to ensure every student has access to coping strategies that set the stage for lifelong healthy living. You can help, too.
You can support students administering COVID-19 vaccines
University celebrates TAG Day and your impact!
Will your support help the Nature Preserve? Yes, it can!
Invasive plants are taking over the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Nature Preserve, and Brendan Enochs '21 is literally digging up the dirt to learn more.
Most universities do not offer students opportunities to conduct research at the undergraduate level with real-world impact. But °®¶¹´«Ã½ does, thanks to °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors.
Brendan’s research to understand how invasive plants may be impacting the soil can provide critical information for invasive species management, and guide strategies to effectively manage lands that are invaded in the future.
With °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund support, Brendan is on his way to building a career as a researcher at a not-for-profit organization, state agency or university focused on ecology and conservation biology. His dream is to work on the conservation of New York state species of concern and preserve them for future generations to appreciate.
Brendan will never forget the opportunities °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors gave him.
Learn more about how Brendan's research is shaping his °®¶¹´«Ã½ experience.
Students say thank you!
On National Philanthropy Day, Nov. 15, students shared their heartfelt thanks to donors for their support. Check it out!
You can inspire life-altering opportunities
Micah Jumpp '21, MA '22, plans to create a better world with a career in public interest law.
During a summer internship with a Washington, D.C., legal services agency, she helped consumers defend themselves against predatory lending. After a storm caused widespread power outages and threatened the last week of her internship, donors came to the rescue, providing a stipend that allowed her to stay in a hotel that still had electricity.
Micah’s broadening her horizons outside of law, too. At °®¶¹´«Ã½, she's been taking courses to learn Chinese and earned third place in a Confucius Institute competition. She's also challenging her school district back home to review its curriculum and teach teach complete and accurate histories of Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), and create equity spaces for BIPOC and LGBTQ+.
°®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors empower students like Micah to dig deep, find themselves and build better futures for everyone.
You can inspire more life-altering opportunities by making a gift to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund. Your compassion today will feed their growth tomorrow.
You can support emergency-relief scholarships
It can be hard enough making the adjustment from high school to college. Nusrat Islam '24 is doing it in the midst of a pandemic.
Her excitement about getting accepted to °®¶¹´«Ã½ was replaced by fear when her parents lost their jobs. She wondered if she would have to give up her dream of becoming an oncologist. She hoped the opportunity to be the first in her family to attend college in America hadn't disappeared.
She applied to every scholarship she came across. The future looked bleak. But then she received life-changing news:
°®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors stepped up to provide emergency-relief scholarships to students affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. She was one of the recipients. She told us that accepting the scholarship felt like standing under a ray of sunshine beaming through the shadows.
In her first semester on campus, Nusrat is already interning remotely with Global Health Impact, developing a tuberculosis model for an index on the organization's website. She's also participating in the Source Project, a program at °®¶¹´«Ã½ that offers humanities -and social sciences- focused research opportunities to exceptional first-year students.
Donors are a shining light for students in need. Every gift to support °®¶¹´«Ã½ gives help and hope to people who need it most.
You can come through with emergency aid for students
Do you remember budgeting down to the penny when you were at school? It took planning, hard work at multiple jobs and sometimes ramen for a few meals. Jason* had his student expenditures planned months in advance.
Then came the coronavirus, and all of Jason's carefully thought out plans disintegrated. He lost his job, his unemployment benefits didn't come through for weeks and he rapidly began running out of money for food and rent.
Fortunately, alumni donors came through with emergency aid. And that made it possible for Jason to continue his studies.
This year promises to be just as challenging for students. Please help if you can.
* Jason is a real °®¶¹´«Ã½ student whose name was changed for privacy reasons.
You can provide students with COVID-19 emergency support
At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Maia lost her job.
She searched for other employment unsuccessfully. To make ends meet, she turned to the food pantry for support. Unfortunately, her complete dietary needs could not be met from the pantry and she became worried about her health.
Thanks to emergency aid from her °®¶¹´«Ã½ family, Maia will be able to buy food needed to maintain proper nutrition. Now she can better concentrate on her academics and worry less about her health.
There are hundreds of students applying for COVID-19 assistance who need help now.
On May 5, #GivingTuesdayNow, please make a gift to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund for Excellence: Providing Emergency COVID-19 Support so students like Maia have the basic resources to be successful.
You can help students complete the semester successfully
Finding a job right now is extremely difficult. Just ask Amanda Peluso '21. She’s really appreciative that °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors are making these times easier by helping to support students who have lost campus jobs. Because of their generosity, she now knows she will make it through the rest of this semester successfully.
Students need you.
You can help students continue their education during the COVID-19 pandemic
We are constantly monitoring the well-being and health of our students, faculty and staff. In the spirit of remaining flexible and nimble, we are encouraging alumni to support the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund for Excellence, which provides essential, immediate support where needs are greatest. Right now, that need is assisting students with emergency funding, and faculty and staff with resources to expand online learning opportunities.
Thanks to generous alumni donors, the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund has been teaming up with partners across campus to help students in need.
Donors to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund for Excellence made it possible for the University's Center for Learning and Teaching, and Information Technology Services, to provide about 50 students with their own mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, giving them access to the internet wherever they are and making sure they have the resources they need to complete their academic studies successfully during the COVID-19 crisis.
As students' financial needs are increasing daily, the Division of Student Affairs has expanded its application process for offering emergency aid to students in need. °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors are providing funding to support this effort.
If you would like to help students who are struggling during this difficult time, please make a gift online to the : Providing COVID-19 Emergency Support. All gifts will be used to support our students and their efforts to complete their semester successfully.
The Student Philanthropy Committee says thanks!
You can support student research opportunities
Rani Marhaba '20 is working to keep us safe from a deadly disease they spread: Lyme.
Rani is doing hands-on work hunting for ticks and mice. He's using support from the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund's alumni donors to investigate Lyme disease in different kinds of environments. Gifts from the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund help pay for his team's lab equipment and supplies.
Inspire more leading-edge research by making a gift to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund today. Maybe we'll all be part of the team that eradicates Lyme disease.
You can provide internship opportunities
Training a pygmy goat is a challenge.
Just ask Kaitlyn Sanders '21, a junior at °®¶¹´«Ã½. Thanks to °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors, she had the chance to intern at the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Zoo at Ross Park this past summer.
She shadowed a zookeeper, trained the goat using operant conditioning techniques and learned about the animal care aspect of animal conservation. This ultimately led to her current part-time job focused on education and public outreach for the zoo.
Kaitlyn is now on her way to a career as a wildlife vet at a conservation or rehabilitation facility, thanks to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund donors who helped fund her opportunity.
But none of it would have been possible if she hadn't received help with transportation costs back and forth to the zoo.
Your gifts to the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Fund provide internships through the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development. Join donors on the wild side.
You can enhance career opportunities for students
She worked hard and it paid off. Unfortunately, hard work is not all it takes for some students. They take out loans for tuition and housing, and they work multiple jobs, but it still isn't enough. Sometimes they just don't have enough funding.
That's where you come in. Your generosity can give students access to essential learning experiences beyond the classroom.