Journal and Courier Editorial

Purdue raises the bar on a bar already raised

Murray Blackwelder, Purdue University's top fund-raiser, must really be feeling his oats.

On Friday, Purdue capped a 10-day spree when multi-million dollar gifts were revealed to the public, one piling on top of the next in a campus celebration that put the gold in the old gold and black.

That night, with indoor fireworks bursting from the centerpieces, Purdue's brass upped the ante: The Campaign for Purdue would tack on an extra $200 million to its $1.3 billion goal. With a just over two years to go, Purdue will aim for $1.5 billion instead.

Three years ago, when the Campaign for Purdue was announced, jaws went slack at the university's sense of what it would take to meet president Martin Jischke's call for greatness. That's billion with a "b," right?

The answer to that question, racked up in multi-million dollar increments, has been obvious.

Since then, Jischke has turned big money gifts into a virtual act of faith. As such, Jischke has been an extremely effective preacher. With Jischke at the point, Blackwelder -- along with deans and department heads motivated to look for wealthy and willing donors across the disciplines and to work in buzz words "pre-eminence," "discovery" and "engagement" whenever and wherever possible -- has organized a university system that keeps private money for a public institution top of mind.

Already with $1 billion and change -- if $7.3 million is sufficient to count as change -- toward the finish line, the Purdue congregation has clearly bought in. If $1.3 billion is in sight, Purdue seems to ask now, why not $1.5 billion? (Yes, again, that's with a "b.")

The self-sustaining route over the life of this Campaign for Purdue seems an increasingly necessary endeavor, considering the chances of finding corresponding faith being shown at the Statehouse next spring when the General Assembly tries to reassemble a two-year budget that actually makes fiscal sense for the next two years.

In recent Journal and Courier interviews with those vying to represent Tippecanoe County's districts in the Indiana General Assembly, candidates gave unwavering support for Purdue. (Some more unwavering than others, admittedly.)

But there were hints of resignation that counting on big increases in state funding for Purdue -- big increases for anything, for that matter -- might amount to wishful thinking as the state tries to finally patch a hole in the state budget that is hundreds of millions of dollars wide. A good year might mean budgetary flat lines instead of cuts.

That doesn't mean Purdue shouldn't ask. But the burden of keeping Purdue on pace as a new biomedical engineering player, as a place where entrepreneurs are groomed and as a place where the state looks for higher education leadership can't be left to state coffers or the whims of state legislators. Thinking bigger with the Campaign for Purdue makes sense.

The heftier goal does give Purdue another tool -- something Jischke should, and no doubt will, use next winter and spring at the Statehouse: If so many alumni see the value of investing in Purdue, see the power of a Purdue education and like what they see in where Purdue is heading, why shouldn't the state? /P>

That's not a bad question to keep asking.