unljnews

By JOHN SCHREIER
J Alumni News staff

Joanna Nordhues, Director of Development NU Foundation

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications, heavily dependent on private funding, has many reasons to thank the NU Foundation.

One very visible reason is Andersen Hall, the college’s home.

The Foundation, via donations from alumni and friends of the college, made it possible for the university to purchase and remodel Andersen Hall for the journalism college in 2001.

About 73 percent of the college’s operating expenses are paid for with money from private sources, said Joanna Nordhues, the NU Foundation’s director of development for CoJMC. And about a quarter of the college faculty is paid in part through donor gifts. About a quarter of students receive privately funded scholarships with foundation help, too.

Many donations come from CoJMC alumni.

“We have extremely loyal and generous alumni even when we’re not having a specific push like this to raise money for this campaign,” said Interim Dean Charlyne Berens.

“We have many, many alumni who regularly support the college with gifts of various sizes, and we continue to be amazed and so pleased that people do feel that kind of loyalty and are willing to help.”

A thank you to foundation supporters is clearly displayed in Andersen Hall’s first-floor lobby.

“If you notice the names on the classroom or on different areas of the building or the plaques that are hanging in the lobby,” Nordhues said, “all of those represent private dollars that have gone to support one group or another within the college.”

Andersen Hall bears the name of key supporters of the college.

“We honored Harold and Marian [Andersen] for very, very long-term service to the university as well as generosity to the university and this project,” said Greg Jensen, CoJMC’s director of development from 1989 to 2001.

Although Jensen no longer represents the journalism college for the Foundation, he still interacts with CoJMC donors and alumni when needed.

“Our business is all about relationships, and just because you move on to another college doesn’t mean you leave those relationships behind,” he said. “I continue to have relationships with journalism alums that I continue to work with from time to time.”

The foundation supports the University Nebraska’s four campuses in Lincoln, Omaha and Kearney and at the Medical Center.

One of its goals is to meet face-to-face with donors to match their interests with the most logical recipients. Sometimes, it’s a matter of determining a patron’s personal or professional passion.

Nordhues connects with the people who have identified journalism as their area of interest. “They give for any variety of reasons:  They want to support the industry; often times they want to give back out of a gratitude for their own degree and the career it made possible for them,” she said. “We connect them with the College of Journalism.”

The foundation team travels across Nebraska and the nation.

Jensen said:  “All of us who are fundraisers spend a lot of time on the road, in-state or out-of-state, seeing folks who have demonstrated an interest in the college through annual gifts and getting to know them.”

Most important to the NU Foundation staff is living up to one of its mottos:  “We believe what we help donors achieve isn’t measured in dollars and cents.”

Berens is grateful for the foundation’s representatives to CoJMC and for what they have done for the college.

“I think we’ve had, over the years, a bunch of fine people from the Foundation who have been our college’s representatives, and they’re just good people,” she said. “They’ve been very good to work with. They’ve been very successful, and I really appreciate their help and expect we’ll continue this lovely relationship through this campaign and indefinitely.”

As the Foundation begins its newest campaign, Nordhues and the college’s campaign team — consisting of 11 alumni — are assessing what the college’s greatest needs are and finding ways to meet them.

“I’m talking with donors about what their passions are, what they feel strongly about supporting,” she said. “When possible, when it makes sense, I match that passion with the projects in the college.”