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UW-Eau Claire recently received its largest financial gift ever – $4.5 million – as a kick off to its new fund-raising campaign.

David and Marilyn Karlgaard, both graduates of Eau Claire, established a $4 million charitable trust designated for the university. They have also allocated $500,000 over the next five years to establish the Karlgaard Excellence in Computer Science Program.

“Education has always been important in our lives,” said David Karlgaard in a news release. “It’s the way anybody can rise up and be successful in life.”

Eau Claire officially will begin the “Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence” fund-raising campaign Friday night. This campaign is the largest effort by a UW System regional institution.

“This is the first ever fund-raising campaign that UWEC has done,” Chancellor Donald Mash said. “Most public universities have a private foundation, which is the vehicle for generating and receiving gifts.”

The campaign is a project of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation, which receives and administers gifts to the university.

During the 2000-2001 fiscal year, the foundation distributed nearly $2 million to students in the form of scholarships and to instructional programs. The sole purpose of the campaign is to support programs at the university, Mash said.

“The context for this is that the university is continually struggling to get state support for programs,” Mash said. “We don’t think we can wait on the state.

“If we don’t do this, years from now we would be a much different university,” Mash said. “We’re in the top tier of regional universities in the country, and this will assure that we’re still going to be there.”

The campaign has been in its quiet phase since June 2000, and is set to conclude in 2005.

The campaign, which will be formally announced Friday, has already collected a number of sizable donations.