BGU | Fundraising Handbook

Fulfilling This Commitment and Ensuring BGU’s Continued Growth and Impact Donor partnership is crucial to BGU’s ability to fulfill its commitment to faculty recruitment. The large-scale recruitment BGU is striving for will only be possible with the support of friends and supporters who share its goals and want to see BGU flourish. Competitive recruitment packages are required to recruit the best and brightest faculty members. These packages cover the cost of establishing and equipping state-of-the-art labs and provide fellowship funding for the graduate students who will work alongside the new researchers, enabling them to pursue their research full throttle immediately on arriving at BGU. These packages can easily exceed $1,000,000. With the aim of recruiting many exceptional new researchers a year, the cost can only be borne in partnership with individuals dedicated to the University’s advancement. Enlisting Support for Faculty Recruitment and Support President’s Distinguished Faculty Recruitment Program The primary avenue for supporting faculty recruitment is the President’s Distinguished Faculty Recruitment Program, which enables the President to identify rising academic stars and provide the generous recruitment packages required to recruit them. This program has already enabled the recruitment of Dr. Shira Chapman, Dr. Eran Maniv, and Dr. Benjamin Palmer, three outstanding young researchers. The program ensures that BGU can compete with global players and bring Israeli postdocs home to build their academic and scientific careers at BGU, thereby combating the brain drain. A Presidential Recruit can be named for a donor with a gift of $1,000,000. Recruitment Packages All new recruits receive recruitment packages, easing their way into academia and ensuring their ability to immediately perform their research. The amount required varies on a case-by-case basis, depending on the needs of the new recruit, but such packages usually consist of: lab construction or renovation, specialized lab/research equipment, support to build a lab team (technicians, graduate students, and postdocs), and seed funds to support preliminary research or pilot studies. Recruitment package support is welcomed in all disciplines.

leading institutions of higher learning, and realize the benefits of its strategic plan. It is central to BGU’s ability to become a talent magnet and has a domino effect, fostering the recruitment of outstanding postdocs, doctoral and master’s degree students, and undergraduates, increasing our capacity to obtain competitive research grants, and fueling collaboration immeasurably. Simply put, the impact of successful recruitment cannot be underestimated. BGU’s Commitment to Faculty Recruitment and Support BGU’s ability to realize its potential and serve as a force for change and solutions in Israel and internationally relies on its ability to become a talent magnet. As a result, the University is committed to the recruitment of new faculty members and researchers and the retention of new and existing faculty members. Each new recruit and faculty member contributes to BGU’s magnetism, attracting other academics and scientists, students at all levels, and diverse stakeholders vital to BGU’s future advancement. The recruitment of Dr. Shira Chapman is an example of BGU’s commitment to recruitment and the extent to which the University is willing to go to recruit outstanding rising stars with the capacity for significant impact. Dr. Chapman recently joined the Department of Physics. The competition was extremely stiff given the fact that Dr. Chapman’s scholarship is exceptional, her research domain (quantum physics) is extremely relevant today, and there are few women in the traditionally male-dominated discipline of physics. Extraordinary efforts were made to recruit her, as in addition to offering her a recruitment package worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, there was a need to establish and fund a new position for her (as she did not replace a retiring professor). However, this did not prove to be an obstacle, as President Chamovitz viewed her recruitment as so important to the University’s advancement that he ensured that her salary would be paid until a physics tenure track position became available through retirement in several years. Not only that, President Chamovitz assured Dr. Chapman that he would do everything possible to enhance her recruitment package, and the additional funding allowed Dr. Chapman to recruit excellent students to her lab. This increased her research capacity significantly and enabled her to hit the ground running upon her arrival at BGU in 2021, and she is already making her mark in her department and her field.

ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH EXCELLENCE

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FACULTY RECRUITMENT AND SUPPORT