IU Foundation kicks off Senior Challenge 2006

The fundraising "Face Off" between IU and Purdue seniors has been under reconstruction and is finally ready to make its first appearance as the "Senior Challenge Campaign," senior Kinzi Houck said.\nThe Face Off was a fundraising competition between the senior classes of IU and Purdue. At the end of the face off, the money raised would be given back to the University as a gift from the seniors.\nGabie Peek, an annual fund associate for the IU Foundation, said the IU Student Foundation had been in charge of the senior gift since the early 1990s. She said the face off ended in 2004, so the foundation chose to use 2005 to carefully plan the new campaign.\n"I knew coming into this project that it was going to have to be in the students' hands," Peek said. "It's difficult for me to decide what IU students like, what appeals to them, what they care about most about this campus ... We needed to get student interns involved."\nShe now supervises Houck and Susan Engle, the two senior interns who have organized the Senior Challenge Campaign 2006.\nHouck described 2006 as a building year for the campaign. She and Engle are planning "senior week" for the first week in April, which will offer seniors different opportunities to learn about the campaign and donate money to IU. Events will be organized at places like Yogi's or Cheeseburger in Paradise.\nHouck said giving to the school is important and she wants students to get in the habit of giving an annual gift even if it is small so that when they have graduated and have jobs, they will already understand the importance of contributing to the University.\n"Educating students on philanthropy is really important to the foundation," Houck said.\nShe said about a quarter of the money IU uses comes from tuition and about another quarter comes from the state. That leaves half of IU's $1 billion yearly operating budget to be made up by gifts from alumni and, as the foundation hopes, seniors.\nWhile campaign organizers hope to gain senior support, some students said they don't see themselves donating anytime soon. \n"I can't donate enough money to say what it should go to," senior Sara Ruetschlin said.\n"Do they not realize they just took $80,000 from us?" senior Jon Jones said. "At least give us time to pay off our loans or find a job. They'd have to put a beer tap in my name or something."\nThe campaign already held a senior night event March 4 at Macri's Deli during a basketball game. The restaurant discounted certain menu choices and the servers wore campaign T-shirts, but Houck said the event had limited success. She said an IU Dance Marathon event on the same night caused some competition, but they still received some new pledges.\nHouck and Engle are at the Lit Desk in the Indiana Memorial Union every Wednesday and Thursday around lunchtime, so students can pick up information, donate or ask questions about the campaign. Seniors can also find more information and give a gift at www.iufoundation.iu.edu/senior.