Last Nov., the week before Thanksgiving break, Waynesburg University’s Office of Institutional Advancement held its first ever campus-wide Day of Giving. Students, faculty, staff and alumni, along with anybody else who wanted to lend a hand, donated to the department or organization of their choice.
Donna Nypaver, associate director of development, said that the reason for the departmental challenge was to get students contributing to their cause.
“We did it to get the students more involved, and we wanted to increase the educational opportunities and enhance each departments programs,” Nypaver said. “So that’s pretty much why we decided to do that, for student involvement.”
The total goal for donations for the first Day of Giving was 250. The university ended up with 625 donors and around $160,000 raised. The Department of Communication alone had 249 donations. For Richard Krause, chairperson for the Department of Communication, this was far above his initial goal.
“Initially my goal was 100 [donations],” Krause said. “And I thought maybe I was overstepping bounds a little bit there. I thought we could do it, but I didn’t know. So I didn’t anticipate anything like 249.”
According to Krause, another student donated after the break, so the number of donors is technically 250, meeting the goal that had been established by the university.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve always had great investment by our current students in the program,” Krause said. “They put a lot of hours in… they’re leaders on campus, so they are quite dedicated and committed to what we do at the department. At the same time, I think that spirit of involvement has carried through.”
Krause estimates that 70 percent of students in the Department of Communication donated. In total, the department received $4,000 towards its budget.
As a result of the additional funds, the Mac Lab, located on the fourth floor of Buhl Hall, experienced some significant changes this summer.
“The $4,000 incentive money [the Department of Communication] won for getting in first place went directly into the [Mac Lab], as well as some of the money from the personal contributions that we received.”
Some of the changes to the Mac Lab include 80-inch displays, as well as new chairs by the computers.
Krause expects a similar project to take place after this year’s Day of Giving, which will be held Thursday, Nov. 16.
“Whatever contributions that we receive, whatever gifts that we get from alums or current students, we’ll turn around [and] put it right back into the daily operation of what we do here.”
One potential project that Krause said could be worked on is room 416 in Buhl, which is where classes, meetings and other department events take place frequently throughout the school year.
“[416 is] a room that gets a lot of traffic for us; especially big events,” Krause said. “And so we’d like to do some things in there just to improve it—make it look a little bit more attractive.”
The Department of Communication is not the only area that had a successful day of donations. Both the English Department and the Criminal Justice Department were also rewarded for their efforts, as both had $2,000 added to their budgets.
Jaime Dessart, professor of english, said that the additional funds gave english students the opportunity to travel to San Diego, California, to present at the Popular Culture Association (PCA) conference. The students who attended were Nicole Drew, Jodie Alexander, both of whom recently graduated, and senior Sean White. Dessart said that five students will be sending out their abstracts for this year’s PCA conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Coming into the annual Day of Giving, Dessart didn’t know what to expect.
“We actually didn’t go in with a lot of expectation in terms of giving,” Dessart said. “We went in primarily thinking about trying to establish a sense of who we were. We didn’t set ourselves a number goal. We said ‘we want to get out there and let people see who we are.’”
The Criminal Justice Department also showed well in the annual event, tying with the English Department for second in donations. According to Adam Jack, chairperson for the Criminal Justice and Social Sciences Department, the money will be used to upgrade tools used in the CSI House.
“We have some needs here in the department in regards to equipment,” Jack said. “Radios and ear pieces and some things like that that we need to upgrade because we’ve been using the same ones for about a decade….We have a number of needs, it’s just a matter of trying to plan out exactly how to use those in the future.”
Last year, eight departments participated in the Day of Giving. Planning for this year’s Day of Giving is already in progress, as Nypaver said that the Office of Institutional Advancement has already met with several department chairs.
Looking back, Nypaver is proud of the support that the university received last November.
“What really made us feel good was how the entire Waynesburg community, and the people that care about Waynesburg, came together and supported us that day,” Nypaver said. “We greatly appreciated it.”