Investing in the Excellence Fund and the
Opportunities It Provides

Opportunities for excellence abound, and we have to be able to seize the moment. The Excellence Fund allows the university to do just that. Unrestricted gifts to the Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence campaign become part of the Excellence Fund, which enables us to participate in new, often quickly arising opportunities and initiatives to better serve our students and our region.

For example, Excellence Fund dollars allowed UW-Eau Claire to rent strategically located space for our Office of Continuing Education. Because of this new, off-campus Water Street location, community members now have improved access to all of UW-Eau Claire’s continuing education services in one easily accessible location.

Each year the Excellence Fund also supports important scholarships and grants, awards for outstanding faculty and staff, and university publications that keep alumni and friends informed.

We seek to grow this important reserve of unrestricted dollars so the university can take advantage of additional opportunities for excellence in a timely manner.

While advantageous circumstances often come up unexpectedly and new needs arise continually, the following are examples of existing needs for unrestricted funds:

• Seed money for new projects proposed by faculty and staff to improve student learning or to better serve the needs of the region.
  

• Creation of fellowship programs like the Ann Devroy Fellowship for all university academic departments. The fellowship awards a scholarship and internship to an outstanding communication and journalism student and brings a noted national authority to campus to speak to faculty, staff, students and community members.
  

• “Time reassignment” funds to make curriculum development efforts more feasible for faculty striving to improve courses to increase student learning.
  

• The creation of new support to attract Wisconsin’s best and brightest students, to help more students with financial need, to better promote diversity and to encourage participation in international education programs.