University President John J. DeGioia outlined preliminary plans for a new fundraising campaign and a new academic science building in his address to faculty during the second annual Faculty Convocation in Gaston Hall on Tuesday.

DeGioia said he plans for a new phase of the next fundraising campaign to be launched within the next year which would attempt to increase appeal to donors and investors. He alluded to the success of the Third Century Campaign, which reached its fundraising goal of $1 billion in 2003.

“We have been engaged in institution-wide discussions that will enable us to articulate the academic commitments, institutional priorities and innovative new opportunities that we will present to our donors and investors,” DeGioia said.

The new university fundraising campaign will focus on supporting Georgetown’s enduring priorities that “stand out for their constancy in the lived reality at Georgetown,” he said.

DeGioia also said the campaign would respond to some of Georgetown’s enduring priorities in detail. The fundraising efforts will have goals of improving the undergraduate learning experience, recruitment of faculty, financial support, infrastructure, adequate library resources, campus ministry and social justice at Georgetown, he said.

In addition, DeGioia spoke on the initiative of the role of science at Georgetown, explaining that a new science building would help to strengthen the academic program on campus.

“We’re going to need an integrated academic, financial, infrastructure and fundraising strategy,” he said.

DeGioia estimated costs of the new science building will exceed $100 million, and said that once the necessary funds are raised, planning would begin for a facility on the site of the former baseball field and across from the site of the future home of the cDonough School of Business.

“We must improve our overall financial performance if we are to move forward with this most urgent academic need,” he said.

DeGioia described the Board of Directors’ decision to approve a financial plan in their February meeting as a first step to moving forward with the science facility. The plan calls on the main campus to achieve an $11 million operating surplus in fiscal year 2006.

“We need to demonstrate to the Board and to major donor prospects that we have the financial capacity to take on the added expenses of building and operating the new science building,” DeGioia said.

DeGioia also discussed a more comprehensive strategy of maintaining positive relations with investors in raising money for the new academic building, noting how in the last fundraising campaign, the university told the investment community, “we need a science building because science is currently an academic weakness for us.”

“That was not a strong strategy,” he said in response to the fundraising campaign. “In the next campaign, we will share with investors an integrated academic, constructive and financial vision that will inspire their support.”