Can Bush Sr. deliver for Texas Southern? TSU receives high-profile fund-raising support from former President George Bush - Houston - Statistical Data Included

Black Issues in Higher Education, Nov 22, 2001 by Lydia Lum

So when Slade, who had raised more than $2.5 million in less than five years for business school scholarships and research, was planning the $50 million campaign university-wide, Bush seemed a natural name-brand leadership choice.

"I have great respect for TSU and what they do, and because Priscilla Slade is quite the persuasive salesman for all the right reasons, I'm very proud to be associated with this school, its president and faculty in helping in this small way," Bush said in a prepared statement for Black Issues. "It is important to supplement the state support of this wonderful institution which has played such an important role historically with minority students."

Dr. Marybeth Gasman, who has extensively researched Black college philanthropy, says the elder Bush's family ties could bring recent charitable giving full circle. After all, Bush's son, as president, is leading this country through terrorist threats and has encouraged people everywhere to give what they can to relief aid. "Certainly, they can speak to Sept. 11 quite tastefully as this campaign continues, as many of the people they approach will have given to Sept. 11 (aid)," says Gasman, an assistant professor of higher education at Georgia State University.

GAINING INNER CIRCLES

TSU's wish list of what the capital campaign contributions will finance reads like that of many universities. Among other things, officials hope to add more endowed scholarships and endowed faculty chairs, and to initiate new research centers. They want to add more computers at TSU's library because a paltry 36 stations are now supposed to provide Internet access to all students. They also want to build a sports stadium and complex so they can stop renting playing fields from other Houston-area colleges.

What is more attention-getting is Slade's burgeoning list of high-profile supporters, including Bush. A year ago, Slade joined Bush and wife Barbara at their family home in Kennebunkport, Maine. There, they hosted an invitation-only party where they wined and dined a handful of Houston business executives and their spouses, who are now assuming leadership roles in the TSU campaign. And earlier this year, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, tapped Slade for his 10-member team advising him on political appointments statewide.

The fund-raising campaign is a rarity for TSU, but the university is far from bankrupt. It has a $12.1 million endowment. State funds make up 56 percent of total TSU revenue, while state funds make up only 50 percent of total support for Texas colleges overall. And for the past six years, the nonprofit Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund (TMSF) has channeled an estimated $180,000 to TSU, says TMSF president Dwayne Ashley.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing the $50 million effort is reaching alumni. Not only have TSU alumni historically not opened their wallets, they also have not really been schmoozed and solicited, university officials say. And those alumni who have given in recent years may not even be known to TSU officials, they say. That's because six people have headed university advancement within the past decade, says Nina Wilson Jones, TSU assistant vice president of development since this past February. And many TSU alumni records are still kept manually, so it's possible that individual contributions that should have been marked, "alumni," were simply not marked as such, Jones says. For instance, TSU records show it received no alumni contributions in fiscal 2001, but it got $132,284 from 553 individual donors. Jones says many of those donors could arguably be alumni.