The Volgenau School 2010 Campaign

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In fall 2005, nearly 600 people, including IT&E alumni, faculty, staff and friends, joined us in celebrating IT&E’s first 20 years and its promising future.

The highlight of the evening was the announcement of a gift of $10 million from Ernst and Sara Volgenau. This was the largest personal donation in the history of George Mason. In recognition of their generosity, our School was named The Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering.

The Volgenau gift will enable us to create exciting new academic and research programs in bioengineering. It will also help us strengthen our existing programs, particularly in the areas of information security and knowledge management. Dr. Volgenau, Chairman of SRA International, Inc., and Mrs. Volgenau have made this commitment because they believe that strategic investments in research and education will lead to important technology breakthroughs that are critical to the ability of our country to maintain its strong technical lead. Their gift shows extraordinary confidence in our School and its programs.

Our investment continues as we move forward with plans for IT& E’s third decade. In October 2005, we announced our $20M “2010 Campaign: A Great Foundation for an Excellent Future.” The most visible outcome of the campaign will be a spectacular new building, the second largest on campus, which will combine academic and research space. The new building is slated to open in 2009.

This five-year campaign will enable us to create degree programs in IT-biosciences and bioengineering, to endow professorships and scholarships, to promote economic growth in the region through these new research emphases, and to provide an unparalleled educational experience for our students.  

The Building

On October 28th, the School of IT and Engineering kicked off its first-ever fund-raising campaign. An essential component of our $20 million campaign, the “2010 Campaign", is a new building to accommodate the school’s expanding programs and to ensure its ability to recruit and retain world-class faculty and attract talented and energetic students.

The new building will consist of approximately 80,000 gross square footage of research space, 80,000 GSF of academic space, and 20,000 GSF of corporate lease space. This 180,000 square-foot, $61 million building, will present an outstanding façade to these visitors and will serve as a new University icon.

The academic portion of the building will house The Volgenau School’s existing seven departments. The facility will enable our faculty, staff and students to collaborate with other academic institutions, and with faculty in other departments at George Mason University. They will continue and expand their efforts to solve challenging and timely problems that affect our communities, our country and our ever-changing world.

The corporate lease space in the new building is an exciting concept that will enable our corporate partners to be located with our outstanding research faculty. It will greatly facilitate the interaction of our faculty, staff and students with colleagues in industry.

The building, which is scheduled to open in fall, 2009, will be the second largest on the Fairfax campus and be prominently located at the intersection of Nottaway River Road and Patriot Circle. It will be between Patriot Center and the Aquatic and Fitness Center. As such, it will be highly visible to visitors entering from Braddock Road. The design will include a striking façade and beautifully landscaped grounds with a garden that take full advantage of this visibility.

For more information on the 2010 Building on Excellence Campaign, click here.

SCHOLARSHIPS

The Volgenau School is committed to achieving a position of recognized excellence. A critical element in achieving this goal is attracting the very best students for our freshman classes from around the country and the world. It is largely the successes and accomplishments of its students that determine the degree to which a university attains recognition as a top institution.

Our school’s academic reputation grows every year, and has reached a level where we are receiving applications from top high school students. However, the market for high-ability information technology and engineering students is highly competitive. To recruit them to IT&E, it is imperative that we offer attractive and competitive four-year scholarships. Without such scholarships, it will be almost impossible to attract the best high school students to our programs.

We know that The Volgenau School offers students a remarkable learning experience that enables them to fully develop their talents and aspirations. Our graduates have gone on to contribute their talents to the area’s leading high-tech corporations. To acquire the very best students, IT&E must provide them with resources comparable with those offered by other universities in the commonwealth and in the nation. We want to bring them to George Mason as students, and keep them in Northern Virginia after graduation to work in the technology industry.

In today’s highly competitive university environment, the very best high school graduates receive full tuition or even “full-ride” scholarship offers from top universities. The academic reputation of IT&E has grown to the point that the applicant pool now includes the very best high school students. We are not able, however, to convert these applications to enrollments because we cannot offer the same scholarships as other private and state universities. The Volgenau School is a comparatively new school and we simply do not have the funding and alumni count of older schools. We have been fortunate to have the support of many corporations and other friends, and as we are engaged in our 2010 campaign, we want to make attractive and numerous scholarships one of the hallmarks of our efforts.

A gift of $70,000 per student to establish the (Company Name Here) Distinguished Undergraduate Scholarship in the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason University will cover full in-state tuition and fees, a laptop computer in the freshman year, and a stipend to help with other expenses, for four years.

We are seeking named Corporate Scholarships to attract the very best students to George Mason University. Our goal is to seek fifty scholarships during the campaign.

PROFESSORSHIPS

The Volgenau School emphasizes quality teaching and has a strong teaching reputation. Faculty members consistently receive high ratings from students in course evaluations and from graduating seniors and alumni.

The school has a crucial need for additional faculty positions. Demographics within the school indicate that approximately 10-12 faculty members will retire during the next seven years. The net increase in new faculty needed by our school between now and 2010 will therefore be approximately 45. This influx of new faces will enable a significant change in the makeup of the School’s overall faculty and enable us to both move into new research areas and to strengthen those currently under way within the school. At the present time, there are relatively few academic positions available nationally for faculty with IT-interests. Offering an enticing recruiting package can help the process.

This year, we are filling eight positions and the candidate pool has been extraordinary. These new faculty will expand our research strengths and visibility in a number of exciting new areas. This effort will continue for the next three years with the addition of a significant number of new faculty members to our school.

Funds are needed to recruit or retain an outstanding faculty member for the position of Department Chair. An endowment of $1 million would generate $40,000 per year.

Two Endowed Professorships are needed to recruit academic stars or to retain current outstanding faculty members. An endowment of $500,000 each would generate $20,000 per year.

For more information, please contact Jennifer Lamb

Assistant Dean for Development
The Volgenau School of IT & Engineering
MS 5C8
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030

(703) 993-1520
Science and Tech II, Room 128
FAX: (703) 993-1734