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 Lee Pigeau, new Campaign Director of Beyond Our Walls, is shown encouraging on-campus campaign volunteers Robert Stairs and Carolyn Johns to sign their pledge forms. Pigeau is a history/ anthropology 1992 grad who returns to Trent from his work at the United Way in Edmonton.
The campaign has now reached $11 million of its $17 million goal, he reports, as it moves into "a very active phase" with the start of the on-campus solicitation in February. "I'm very happy to be back at Trent," Pigeau says, "and this campaign is very solid." He stresses that the entire university is involved in Beyond Our Walls, which is definitely a team effort. Members of the team leading the on-campus push include Stairs, Johns and David Glassco. Stairs, from the Chemistry Department, says support from the Trent community is important. "It shows our own commitment to Trent and is a good message for the outside world. Our informal objective is $1.2 million from staff, faculty, students and retirees." There was a 52 per cent participation by this group in the For Tomorrow campaign, which met its objective. Great participation is hoped for this time. Johns, who works in the Math Department and the Human Rights Office, points out that participation of staff members is critical to the success of the campaign, as it has been in each of Trent's seven campaigns. She noted that staff donations in the last campaign exceeded the $100,000 goal. This time staff are being encouraged to support an OPSEU Bursary, which members voted to support in their September General Meeting. A suggested gift is $25 a month for the five-year period of the campaign. To date, staff have contributed more than $44,000 to the campaign, she said. Glassco, from the English Department, notes that, to date, faculty have donated more than $110,000 to the campaign. "In this campaign we are adopting a different approach in that people will be asked to contribute in keeping with identified areas of interest," such as the OPSEU and TUFA Bursaries, a Memorial Scholarship for Michael Treadwell, the Trent Centre for Community-Based Education, the Water Quality Centre, the Ryle Lecture and Trent's Nature Areas, to name just a few. "As Bob has already pointed out, one of the crucial goals is to get the participation rate in the campaign up as high as possible. Another is to set a target for contributions. We hope that the faculty will make a pledge of at least .6 per cent of their annual salary for each of the five years of the campaign." |
