To achieve its top fund-raising priorities --supporting faculty and students and constructing state-of-the-art facilities --the university is extending Campaign UCLA, Chancellor Albert Carnesale has announced. The new goal is to secure $2.4 billion in private support by 2005.

Extending the campaign will help UCLA meet its needs as a world-class public research university as increased enrollment, plus scientific and technological advances, heighten demands and create new opportunities, organizers said. The campaign decision followed an extensive review process whereby the chancellor worked with academic leaders to identify emerging short-term and long-term priorities.

Already the most ambitious philanthropic effort ever undertaken by a public university, Campaign UCLA provides a vital source of revenue, given that the campus receives only 21% of its operating budget from the state.

"While state support has continued to increase, it has not kept pace with our growing needs," Carnesale said. "It has become essential to increase private support in order to offer aid to the most promising undergraduate and graduate students, recruit and retain the best faculty and provide top-quality facilities."

As a result, the university is expanding research and teaching opportunities for faculty and students in all academic areas through endowed chairs, fellowships, scholarships and library and cultural collections.

To meet substantial capital needs, Campaign UCLA is securing funds to construct new facilities and to restore campus buildings dating back to 1929. Benefiting faculty, students, staff and visitors to campus, these projects include the Westwood replacement hospital, the Broad Art Center renovation and expansion, the Court of Sciences Building and the Physics and Astronomy Building.

"Public-private partnerships are making these capital improvements possible," Carnesale said. "The state provides funding for seismic renovations, but private philanthropy allows us to go beyond the basics to create 21st-century facilities that are technologically sophisticated and architecturally distinctive."

In addition, Campaign UCLA is helping meet the challenges of Tidal Wave II, as offspring of the baby boom generation enter their college years. This surge of new students will result in an estimated 40% enrollment jump at UC campuses over the next decade.

The university publicly launched Campaign UCLA in 1997 with an initial goal of $1.2 billion. After that target was achieved more than two years early, UCLA established a new goal of $1.6 billion by June 2002. In the midst of an uncertain economic climate, this revised goal was attained six months ahead of schedule.

The outpouring of support for the university can be attributed to "the UCLA family's high level of enthusiasm and commitment," according to Robert Wilson, chairman of the Campaign Cabinet --a campus leadership group comprised of alumni, community and business leaders and academic officials.

"As we enter the campaign's final phase," Wilson said, "we must build on our momentum and achieve much more to address the university's unmet and emerging needs."