wfn.org | Africa University needs $40 million endowment to be independent

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 25, 1999  News media contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn. 10-31-71B{164}

BALTIMORE (UMNS) - For Africa University to be financially independent, the
United Methodist school must have an endowment of $40 million.

An appeal for continued support was made during a meeting of the school's
development committee March 15-16.

In 1992, the endowment fund was less than $1 million, reported James H.
Salley, associate vice chancellor for institutional advancement. Today, the
total has reached more than $17 million. 

"Africa University was never set up to be an apportioned item in the United
Methodist Church forever," Salley said. 

The 50-member development committee, established in 1993, works with the
Africa University Development office in Nashville, Tenn., and with
affiliated governing and promotional agencies of the United Methodist Church
to raise money for the capital, endowment and operational needs of the
university.

Each General Conference, beginning in 1988, has requested United Methodists
to give $20 million each quadrennium to support the school: $10 million in
apportioned giving for construction and operation and $10 million to endow
scholarships and for other needs.  Apportionments are amounts requested of
local churches as their share of the total amount. The cost of educating a
student at the university for one year is $3,500, which covers tuition and
fees, room and board, medical care, and books.

The development committee and the university's Board of Directors are urging
the 2000 General Conference to double the $10 million apportionment for the
2001-2004 quadrennium. The United Methodist Church in the United States has
invested nearly $30 million in Africa University since it's inception,
according to Salley.

Bishop Alfred Norris of Albuquerque, N.M., committee chairman,  said
day-to-day operations of the school are totally dependent on apportionment
giving.  Efforts of the church in 1988 to establish a university in Africa
was "God-ordained," he said. 

The university, officially opened in 1992, is the only United
Methodist-related, degree-granting university on the continent and is the
first fully accredited private institution in Zimbabwe.  Approximately 784
students are enrolled in four faculties or colleges including theology,
education, agriculture and natural resources, and business administration.
Ninety-four students have graduated from the institution.

To illustrate the importance of support from every United Methodist, Salley
said 60 cents from each member each year during the next four years would
raise $20 million. If $1.5 million could be generated in 1999 and put into
the endowment fund and $2 million could be raised and invested annually at a
rate of 8 percent until 2004, a $39 million endowment fund could be
established, Salley said.  "It is doable and it can happen." 

"The appeal to the church is to help us finish what we started," Norris
said.

"It is important for the church to understand that we are attempting to
operate a university on an apportionment established 10 years ago," Salley
said. "As we face the year 2000, it is still the same."  The increase is
needed, he said, because the university has  fully developed its campus,
faculty and staff and expects to have1000 students enrolled in the year
2000. 

Committee members are projecting that the school will be completed in the
year 2004. "Africa University is worthy of continued support by the General
Conference and is not a barrier or threat to emerging projects of the
church," Salley said. "It has done what it said it would do in establishing
an institution that is training future leaders for the continent."  

"The work we have accomplished thus far goes beyond what we could have
dreamed and so much more has been done than most institutions could do with
the resources that have been available," Norris said.

University vice chancellor (president) Rukudzo Murapa, installed as vice
chancellor of Africa University last November,  told committee members he
hopes more financial support will come from multinational corporations and
other organizations and agencies  in Zimbabwe and other countries of Africa.
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