Faced with financing a new student village that could cost more than $50 million, administrators in the Office of Student Affairs have created a new full-time position, director of development for student affairs, and appointed longtime development specialist Treat Harvey to fill that post.
Harvey, assistant director of corporate and foundation relations since 2001, has over 20 years experience in development, marketing and sales. Her expertise will be needed to obtain donations for one of the most expensive student affairs projects ever.
Student affairs fundraising was previously conducted in the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations, like other projects throughout the University. Ultimately, however, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta decided a full-time position was needed to focus completely on soliciting funds for student affairs.
"It's been sort of assigned to people in Arts and Sciences and in our office, central development," Harvey said. "It's a program assignment area for people like us who work with lots of different priorities. There's a rotating list of priorities in a campaign this size."
President Nan Keohane said that while student affairs fundraising will be important beyond the current Campaign for Duke that concludes on Dec. 31, 2003, she and Moneta thought the time was right to intensify the development effort while the campaign was still in progress.
"[Moneta] wants to take advantage of the last seven months of the campaign. He's already received some support for the Bryan Center renovations, but he'd like to push [student village development] out front while people are still thinking 'campaign,'" Keohane said. "That doesn't mean we'll stop [fundraising] on Dec. 31. But we will then be... thinking about how do we now put our needs, post-campaign, into focus and decide what it is we're going to ask people to support without making them feel that we're just going on and on and saying, 'Wait, the campaign never ended.'"
Despite the efforts to take advantage of the campaign, Harvey said one of her greatest challenges will be attempting to work on a project that has not been strongly emphasized so far.
"Right now, [among] the biggest priorities for the campaign, the village is not part of that," she said. "A challenge will be that I can't walk into this and immediately be hooked up with [donor] prospects."
Harvey will be doing a different sort of fundraising from the corporate and foundation work that she has specialized in for the last few years. Donations to buildings and the endowment, anticipated for the student village, are generally sought from individuals and some businesses, she said.
Those who have worked with Harvey said they are confident she will do a good job.
"I think she's going to be great. She brings a lot of energy, a lot of experience," said Mimi O'Brien, director of corporate and foundation relations and vice president for development. "She gets really deeply engaged with the projects she's working on, and she's got a really good head for details. These are important traits for people in development."
While in central development, Harvey has worked extensively on the Neighborhood Partnership Initiative and helped secure a $2.25 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation for an after-school program. Prior to coming to the University, Harvey served as director of development for the Durham Arts Council, Inc.
Moneta praised Harvey's personality, energy and enthusiasm and also pointed to her past work as sound preparation for what lies ahead. "She's certainly very experienced; obviously being part of Duke, she understands the Duke machine," he said.
Alex Garinger contributed to this story.
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