CSUF Kicks Off $200M Campaign

California State University-Fullerton has launched a new fundraising campaign to raise $200 million by 2025.

The philanthropic effort, “It Takes a Titan,” kicked off March 12.

It marks the first-ever campuswide campaign at the 63-year-old school—the largest school in the 23-campus California State University system.

It was prompted due to declining student aid from the state, a fast-growing student population and aging campus infrastructure—over 50% of buildings are more than 40 years old, according to university officials.

The campaign will focus on four areas: academic innovation, campus transformation, community enrichment and student empowerment. It spans eight colleges: arts, business, communications, education, engineering and computer science, health, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics, in addition to athletics, sustainable efforts and student affairs.  

Adding to its campaign goals, the university wants to boost full-time enrollment 30% from 25,000 to 32,000; double on-campus housing capacity; and construct a 6,000-seat event center on campus by 2040.

The school said it wants to achieve those goals without raising tuition.

The expansion plan goes before the CSU Trustees this spring.

It Takes a Titan is the second notable fundraising campaign for an Orange County public school in recent months; in November the University of California-Irvine kicked off its own $2 billion fundraising drive, one it describes as “the largest philanthropic effort in Orange County history.”

STEM Support

CSUF has already been promised $10 million in donations to kick off its own campaign.

Nicholas Begovich, a retired engineering executive at Hughes Aircraft Co., and his wife, Lee, gifted the university a 15-car collection of postwar European sports cars valued at $10 million on Feb. 29. 

“It’s appropriate that this incredibly generous gift from Nick and Lee Begovich kicks off our first-ever philanthropic campaign. They have been a part of the Titan family for over 60 years since the university’s beginning.” CSUF President Fram Virjee said.

“This gift is evidence of their committed investment in our students and faculty.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am about this. It completes my life,” Nicholas Begovich said.

The collection will be sold through the Cal State Fullerton Philanthropic Foundation. Begovich said he wants the collection to obtain its maximum value and, ideally, stay together.

Of the $10 million being promised by the family, $7 million is designated for research and lab improvements at the Center for Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy, which will be renamed in honor of the Begovichs, at the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

The remaining $3 million will support research at the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Among one of its campaign goals, the university also hopes to raise funds for a new engineering and computer science building. The original building was built in the late 1970s.

Arts Aim

Nicholas, 98, and Lee, 91, started supporting CSUF in the 1960s.

While Nicholas got involved with the natural sciences college, Lee, a retired first grade teacher, began serving the arts on campus and at one point was the president of the CSUF Art Alliance.

Over the years, the couple has also donated to the Pollak Library, the president’s scholars endowment fund and also gave a $1 million gift to the art department in 2010.

The school’s main art gallery already dons their names.

Like the Begovichs, the university wants to rally support around all its colleges from engineering to the arts; the university plans to launch a creative arts and technology discipline, create a new visual arts center with media labs and updated facilities, and renovate performing arts venues across campus. CSUF also plans a $66 million renovation of six buildings in the Visual Arts complex, built in 1969. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2021.

Business Boon

It’s not the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics’ first time around the fundraising block.

Among its most notable donors: Steven G. Mihaylo and his wife, Susie, who have donated more than $30 million to the school and Paul Folino, the former chairman and chief executive of longtime area network connectivity firm Emulex. He gave $1 million to the business school; Folino drive near campus is named after him.

The business school said it plans to keep growing, with the aim to support a School of Risk Management and Insurance.

The college already has 14 centers of excellence and a startup incubator program for entrepreneurs.

It recently turned its accountancy program into the Applied Financial and Data Analytics Center.

Community Ties

The just-announced five-year campaign is led by a congress made up of representatives from the Associated Students Inc., Alumni Association, Academic Senate and President’s Office, including Virjee’s wife, Julie.

Community members serving on this year’s executive committee of the foundation’s board of governors include Chair Kerri Ruppert Schiller, executive vice president and chief financial officer of CHOC Children’s; Chair Elect Joe Hensley, president of Orange County U.S. Bank; and Ernie Schroeder, president and chief executive of Schroeder Management Co.

Schroeder and Schiller are CSUF alumni—and are part of the nearly 80% of Titan alumni that stay in OC after graduation, according to Virjee.