External Bridges
New gifts and commitments to The Power of Stevens campaign totaled $179 million at the end of FY20. Gifts and pledges for FY20 were $14 million bringing total campaign gifts to the endowment to $82 million and exceeding the strategic plan goal of $80 million. While Stevens’ U.S. News & World Report peer assessment ranking has not yet reached the desired target, the peer reputation score, which is used in the ranking calculations, remains at 2.9, up from 2.6 in 2014. Despite the challenges of a campus under construction and transitioning to remote learning and business operations in March 2020, progress continued to be made to enhance the campus visitor experience. Stevens’ 150th anniversary was the primary initiative leading into 2020, and it provided the basis for highly visible activities on campus. The pandemic created new challenges, and many campus activities were put on hold. As a result, Stevens created and provided many different but compelling virtual experiences for visitors, and consistent with prior years, a wide variety of initiatives were implemented to demonstrate Stevens’ value and contributions to the Hoboken community. Two “corporate friendly” committees continued to work to advance the university’s corporate engagement initiatives.