Paul Allen Gives $26 Million to $1 Billion WSU Capital Campaign

Paul Allen

Washington State University announced today that billionaire Paul Allen is making a gift of $26 million to WSU's School for Global Animal Health. It's the largest single charitable contribution he's made, said Allen, WSU's most illustrious dropout, at an event at Seattle's Convention Center.

"Washington State University has been important to me since I was a student there in the 1970s. Our family foundation, under the leadership of my sister Jody, has supported a number of programs at WSU. And today, I am happy to be able to make a significant personal gift to help WSU broaden its reach and touch many more lives," said Allen in a prepared statement.

The gift makes it the School for Global Animal Health that Microsoft built. The Gates Foundation provided $25 million for the school's construction in 2008. Besides the obvious implications for livestock health, the school will also focus on animal-to-human disease transmission: "Zoonotic diseases--infections transmitted from animals to humans--account for more than 70 percent of human infectious diseases," notes WSU. Construction is expected to finish in 2012, and the new building will be named the Paul G. Allen Center for Global Animal Health. 

WSU President Elson Floyd

Allen's gift was tied to WSU's announcement that its $1-billion capital campaign--in a quiet phase since 2006--had raised over $500 million. With Allen's gift, donors have pledged $532.2 million. Now the university will be going public with its fundraising, as it tries to collect the rest by 2015.

WSU President Elson Floyd and campaign chair Scott Carson emphasized that the campaign was aimed at development of the land-grant university, its infrastructure and resources, and was not a response to declining education funding from the state. (Carson in particular underlined the fact that funding education is the state's primary duty.) That being said, close to $200 million of the campaign is dedicated to scholarships and fellowships for students. $250 million is earmarked for attracting and retaining high-powered faculty.

In something of a statement, the reception at Seattle's Washington State Convention Center was linked electronically with WSU campuses in Pullman, Spokane, Tri-Cities, and Vancouver, as well as the research and extension centers in Prosser, Mount Vernon, Puyallup, and the tree fruit research and extension center in Wenatchee--in addition to international WSU research locations.

WSU's mascot Butch poses with the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle's Bill Stafford

The littlest Cougar & Butch