Over Three-Quarters There!
With incredible support, our start is strong. But to meet our campaign goals, we will need to raise the remaining $30 million to support Campaign Priorities from the School’s long-range strategic plan.
Why Your Gift Matters
These are important times for the United States, for democracy and for the world. And they are important times for the Maxwell School, which exists to sort out the biggest issues of society, while preparing leaders and citizens for their roles in public life.
Maxwell is taking extraordinary steps to meet the challenges of the era. We are creating new research initiatives—and enhancing many of those that exist—so as to better inform public policy and gain a deeper understanding of society. We are creating named faculty positions and filling them with scholars who not only conduct such research, but also prepare future researchers to do the same. And, in particular, we are optimizing Maxwell’s advantages for undergraduates—many of them future public leaders, all of them future engaged citizens.
In all this work, Maxwell remains doggedly interdisciplinary, because complex public challenges require broad approaches. Maxwell is still the only leading school of public affairs mixing the social sciences, policy research and professional degrees.
I am Maxwell
I’m incredibly grateful to receive this scholarship. It enables me to focus on my studies and developing my skills as a public administrator—skills which I hope to one day put to use to help improve communities.”
Rosalyn Impink '22 B.A. (PSt)
State and Local Government Public Administration Scholarship Recipient
How Your Gift Matters: Campaign Priorities
Improve Student Access and Experience
This is Maxwell’s top campaign priority. Your gift to create or grow scholarship funds expands our ability to educate a broad range of students to make a positive impact in their communities—regardless of their ability to pay. In addition, your gift helps to enrich and deepen their education through specialized training and experiential opportunities.
Recent gifts have provided scholarships for first-generation college students; created undergraduate internships in communications and public safety; established a training program for graduate students to identify and address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in their studies and in their future careers; funded fellowships for graduate student research on sustainable energy, and more.
Attract, Hire and Retain Faculty
Gifts that support faculty—particularly in the form of fellowships and endowed professorships—bolster our ability to ensure faculty excellence across disciplines and issue areas. Recent gifts of this nature include the new Pontarelli Professor of Sustainability and Finance, the Ajello Professor in Energy and Environmental Policy, the Strasser Professor of Public Administration, and the Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking.
Seize Opportunities and Meet Unexpected Needs
This campaign priority empowers the School to act nimbly in pursuit of innovative new ideas and in response to emerging issues, via gifts through the Maxwell Dean’s Fund or discretionary gifts.
In recent years, for example, the Maxwell Dean’s Fund has provided start-up funding for the now-thriving Maxwell X Lab, supported individual research projects, and—in a few cases—enabled promising students to continue their education amid unforeseen financial challenges or family crises.
Aside from the Maxwell Dean’s Fund, discretionary gifts have supported programming for politically active veterans, Community Geography projects focused on refugee populations in Syracuse, and more.
Influencing Policy Through Impactful Scholarship
Rounding out the campaign goals, Maxwell aims to underwrite policy-relevant research within our 11 interdisciplinary centers and institutes. In recent months, Maxwell faculty affiliated with the School’s research units have:
- chaired a working group for the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board to review the agency’s rollback of automobile tailpipe emission standards,
- testified before Congress on the growing hunger crisis facing veterans and military families,
- sought priority status for individuals with development disabilities and their caregivers for vaccination against COVID-19,
- participated in a White House roundtable on drug abuse on college campuses,
- served on a Congressionally-mandated review of the FAA’s policies on unmanned aircraft systems and,
- served as Library of Congress Chair in U.S.-China Relations, convening events for Congressional staffers on relations between the two countries.
Whether you choose to support student scholarships, excellent faculty, impactful research, or discretionary uses, you can trust in the Maxwell School’s track record for developing and empowering students, alumni and faculty to have a meaningful impact on their communities.
For more stories of impact from Forever Orange: the Campaign for Syracuse University, please watch this video.