Through NSU, Our Community Will Realize Its Full Potential

Largest-ever philanthropic campaign to support scholarships for its students, faculty research, and 21st century educational initiatives

Dr. George Hanbury, President & CEO, NSU

Since Nova Southeastern University was founded more than 50 years ago, helping our students, faculty, staff and community realize their potential has been the foundation of our mission. We’ve re-dedicated ourselves to that commitment through Realizing Potential: The Campaign for Nova Southeastern University.

On Saturday, January 30, we were surrounded by more than 500 business and community leaders and philanthropists as we announced a half-billion-dollar external funding effort that will have a far-reaching impact on the South Florida community and beyond.

Through Realizing Potential, Broward County’s largest-ever philanthropic campaign, NSU seeks to raise $250 million to support scholarships for its students, faculty research, and 21st century educational initiatives by December 2020. Coupled with the university’s goal of raising $300 million in externally funded research, the campaign will be a catalyst toward NSU achieving its Vision 2020.

I am pleased to share that we have exceeded the halfway point with our philanthropic efforts, raising $129 million since the launch of the campaign. As part of the campaign announcement we recognized seven families and companies whose cumulative giving exceeded $11 million in 2015, as they joined other members of the university’s highest level of donors, the Shark Circle. NSU is proud to have more than 60 individuals, families and foundations in this prestigious giving society, which recognizes donors who have given $1 million or more.

Through NSU, others reach and exceed their academic and research goals and translate those goals into impactful results for the broader community. Now, it is time for us to harness the power and impact of our more than 170,000 alumni, 26,000 students, and our community to realize the full promise of our potential as Broward County’s only doctoral research university.

We aim to retain more graduates in the state in order to enhance Florida’s “brain trust.” To accomplish this, we need to attract the best and brightest and give them unprecedented access to learning, research, and community. These students need more scholarship opportunities so they can truly apply themselves and earn a high-quality education and a job upon graduation.

This is a pivotal time at NSU. We will soon become the only university in the Southeastern United States and the first in Florida to house both a College of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) and a College of Allopathic Medicine (M.D.). This coincides with the spring 2016 opening of a 215,000-square-foot Center for Collaborative Research (CCR) and the future relocation of HCA East Florida’s Plantation General Hospital to NSU’s campus in Fort Lauderdale/Davie to support the community and further our research mission.

As an educational institution of higher learning with more than eighty percent of our students in graduate and professional programs, we are a knowledge-based industry here to help our community realize its potential. We look forward to continuing this journey in your back yard.

Dr. George Hanbury is president & CEO of Nova Southeastern University.

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February 16, 2016