Allison Norwood is applying to medical school. Thomas Carpenter is awakening students to the classical world. Armana Milbry is becoming a confident globetrotter. Kei Futamura is seeing things more clearly.

These four represent what Ohio University does best — create opportunities. And the Bicentennial Campaign, the institution’s most ambitious fund-raising effort to date, will generate more opportunities than ever before.

The campaign’s goal is to raise more than $200 million by 2004, the University’s 200th anniversary, to strengthen scholarships, professorships, innovative programs, technology and facilities.

“We have come to accept that great public universities become that way not solely from state support but from the support that comes from alumni and friends,” says President Robert Glidden. “We should care about this campaign because it will improve the University in nearly every aspect, giving us a higher national profile.”

Some $114 million already has been raised during the campaign’s quiet phase, including the largest single gift in the University’s history.

These contributions will boost the endowment, which has grown from $69.3 million in 1991 to $220 million this academic year.

“There is a direct correlation between an institution’s academic reputation and its endowment,” says Vice President for University Advancement Leonard Raley. “A larger endowment will allow us to grant more scholarship aid, recruit and retain more professors, award more graduate research fellowships and provide additional funds for innovative programming.”

What’s more, the campaign is galvanizing alumni worldwide as well as inspiring students, many of whom have benefited from scholarships and programs supported by donors.

“Students sometimes don’t understand that the value of their degree is owed to the support that alumni give,” says senior Amy Owens, who is coordinating a student effort to raise $100,000 for the campaign. “I’ve grown here as a person and enjoyed my time so much that I want to give back.”

On the following pages, you’ll read how private support has made a difference in the lives of Allison Norwood, Thomas Carpenter, Armana Milbry and Kei Futamura. And like them, generations of future students and faculty will benefit from the generosity of campaign donors.

“People will look back and reflect on how the Bicentennial Campaign transformed Ohio University in the early part of the 21st century,” Raley says. “It will help to write an entire new chapter for the institution.”