The scholarship drive was intended, in part, to keep financial aid stable after many students’ financial circumstances changed following the economic downturn of the past few years. The drive’s formation was announced as the University’s endowment lost money; the University swore that making college affordable to its students was a priority.

“The initiative is to raise scholarship funds to make sure that Wash. U. can enroll students regardless of their financial situation and to make sure that our current students have the funds necessary to graduate,” Bill Witbrodt, director of Student Financial Services, said.

The initiative will end on June 30, 2014 and is gaining most of its funds from the gifts and pledges of alumni and students’ parents.

The scholarship funds are going toward both need- and merit-based financial aid, as determined by the individuals who apply for the scholarships.

Over a period of 18 months, the University has raised almost half of its goal of $150 million.

“We are moving along very nicely toward the goal and ahead of the schedule,” James L. Hamlin, Executive Director of Scholar Support, said.

The funding for the initiative comes from a variety of different sources that include gifts and pledges from alums and friends of the university. Especially among the alums, the “Opening Doors” campaign has gained wide participation.

“The scholarship initiative resonated with friends and alumni who understand the importance of providing financial aid to deserving students,” Hamlin said. “They realize the necessity for providing the monetary aid for these students who want to come to this university. Most donors want it to be based on financial need.”

The optimism among the parties involved with the initiative is also shared by junior Betel Ezaz, the co-chair of WU/FUSED (Washington University for Undergraduate Socioeconomic Diversity).

“I think it’s a very necessary initiative,” Ezaz said. “It shows the University’s commitment to providing for capable students who would not necessarily [have the financial means] to be able to afford coming to Wash. U.”

The initiative allows the University to continue expanding its student diversity, as more financial aid can be handed out to students coming from lower-income backgrounds.

“This allows the admissions office more flexibility in enrolling more economically diverse students,” Ezaz said.

Announced this September in a proposal called the “Plan to Renew Student Activism,” this project is a component of the Montana administration’s grander goal to improve the daily experience of students.

“Many other schools have student portals,” said senior Jeff Nelson, SU president. “We believe that a student portal will vastly improve the online experience for students.”

The initiative is aimed at improving students’ access to online resources, such as course syllabi, grades, student account balances, academic social calendars, library databases and University announcements.

Because the technology interfaces for these resources are decentralized, students currently have to navigate through different interfaces and log in during each process.

Members of SU say they recognize this inconvenience and are working to create a more versatile student technology portal. The Montana administration has made solving this problem one of its priorities.

SU, with the endorsement of the Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC), is forming a steering committee composed of students and administrators. This committee will brainstorm and develop a centralized student portal to integrate the interfaces.

In addition to allowing access to all the current features through one login ID within one interface, the new student portal will include several new features.

For example, SU aims to allow students to sync personal calendars with external Web-based data—such as in The Link—listing events and meetings occurring on campus.

Furthermore, the new student portal will also employ social networking programming interfaces such as Facebook Connect.

Requesting resources will also be made easier and more secure. Using the new student portal, students will be able to request any campus resource, such as event space, equipment, streaming lectures, notes and enrichment exercises.

This initiative is not the first move toward a centralized student portal. Last spring, WUSTL Key was launched to eliminate the need for multiple usernames and passwords for each online interface.

Because of the large scope of this project, SU cannot yet predict when the portal will be launched.

“There is no set timeline on the project,” Nelson said. “I hope that we can come up with some concepts this year and work on implementing them next year.”

Some students are open to the future change.

“Each [interface] works fine, but having them all in one place would be very convenient,” freshman Danny Guenther said.

Others doubt the emphasis that SU places on this issue.

“To be honest, I don’t have a huge problem with the current system,” freshman Susan Pasternak said. “I don’t know it should be SU’s top priority.”

To obtain more information or to suggest ideas for the development of the portal, please e-mail Jeff Nelson at president@su.wustl.edu.