From the President

When I became president of Hardin-Simmons University, I stressed the need for us to increase the HSU endowment to $100 million. In our Securing the Future campaign, we have put the elements in place to enable you to participate directly in helping us attain this critical goal.

At key points in the history of this great institution, individuals and families with foresight and dedication have invested their time, their energy, and their financial resources to help secure the future of Hardin-Simmons. In our beginning years, James Simmons and his family, and later during the Great Depression, Mr. and Mrs. John G. Hardin made significant contributions to Hardin-Simmons that literally kept the school alive. Others, such as J.D. Sandefer, Rupert Richardson, Julius Olsen, and Aileen Culpepper invested their entire adult lives in HSU.

These great exemplars of the Hardin-Simmons spirit knew that through their commitments future generations would experience the benefits of an education enlightened by faith. Today, we have the opportunity to create a legacy that will secure the future of our beloved university for generations to come.

Research suggests that by 2050 half of all private colleges or universities in the United States will either close or merge. Your participation in this campaign will help assure that Hardin-Simmons is not among them.

The success or failure of small private universities is, in the long run, conditioned by their level of endowment: all great universities have significant endowments. Without endowment, it is almost impossible to become and remain great.

The benefits of endowments are manifold:

• Stability
• Security
• Competitive advantage
• Faculty enhancement
• Academic development
• Student recruitment

Endowments are the fuel that fires the furnace of success, and endowments go on forever to perpetuate success. More scholarship endowments increase the size and academic quality of our student body, which leads to more tuition dollars, which ultimately leads to more alumni. More alumni lead to more endowment.

Within these pages you will find great opportunities to support the mission of Hardin-Simmons University through scholarships, faculty professorships and chairs, lectureships, key programs, entire schools and facilities. Almost everything can be endowed. And every dollar takes us one step closer to securing the future of HSU.

Please review these materials and prayerfully consider how we can work together to create an endowment program that both supports the needs of HSU and reflects your own personal passion. We covet your prayers and anything you feel led to do: together, all of us can Secure the Future of HSU. May God bless you for your interest, and may God bless the work of Hardin-Simmons University.

Dr. W. Craig Turner
14th President