"It's not going out asking for money. It's thinking about what does the university bring to the table," Hrabowski said, moments after meeting with an alumnus who had started his own company and was looking to hire UMBC students and make a donation.
Colleges must be very attentive to building relationships with their alumni as soon as they graduate, Warren said, because "out of that base will come a person who will be able to give $1 million and then $10 million." Indeed, women's colleges have traditionally suffered in fundraising because they did not emphasize those ties, said Mary Pat Seurkamp, president of the all-women's College of Notre Dame of Maryland.
She has tried to change that by inviting alumnae to campus and traveling the country to meet them. She also said graduates of women's colleges tend to direct their philanthropy toward their communities and their children's schools. "We've got to figure out how we capture their attention and keep them connected to us so they understand what a difference they can make," Seurkamp said.
College presidents need to enjoy fundraising because they spend so much time at it. That doesn't mean it's easy. In a 2005 survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education, presidents identified the task as one of their greatest challenges.
They also said they had felt unprepared for it when they started their jobs. But in interviews this week, not a single president complained about raising money.
"It aggravates me that people sometimes refer to college and university presidents as glorified fundraisers, as if this were some demeaning activity that intellectual leaders should not stoop to," said Goucher's Ungar. "It's not a horrible thing at all. It's a noble thing."
More and more presidents are being chosen for their skills in fundraising. Having a sense of humor and the gift of gab are valuable assets, said Warren, head of the private college association and a former president of Ohio Wesleyan.
UMBC is in the midst of a $100 million capital campaign. So far, it has raised $94 million. Greg Simmons, the university's interim vice president for institutional advancement, said cultivating relationships and helping high-end donors realize that their vision can become something substantive is key.
So are the well-timed efforts of a charismatic president like Hrabowski. "Freeman's an extraordinary fundraiser," Simmons said. "He can start, he can do middle relief, or he can close. ... But there are huge expectations."
Hopkins' new president has a similarly good track record, a skill he will need if he is to keep Hopkins at its current fundraising pace. As dean of the Toronto law school, he reached out to alumni in new ways to raise money, creating symposiums and magazines to connect them to the school, increasing the school's endowment from $1 million to $57 million over 10 years. As provost of the University of Pennsylvania, he has been known as a gifted fundraiser for the school's capital campaign.
"Universities have to continue to make the case for higher education," Daniels said Tuesday when he was introduced at Hopkins. Asked if he enjoyed raising money, he said, without hesitation, "I love it."
Baltimore Sun reporter Gadi Dechter contributed to this article.
