In October, the University announced that it would raise the goal of Big Ideas. Bold Plans. The Campaign for the University of Rhode Island from $250 million to $300 million. The enthusiasm and generosity demonstrated by the URI community—alumni, families, friends, corporations, and foundations—have driven the campaign over $218 million, just over a year after its public launch. This momentum, combined with the vision of President Marc B. Parlange, will allow the campaign to do more for the University’s strategic growth in the years ahead.

The student access pillar of the campaign has received transformative and generous support, making a URI education a reality for some of our most hardworking and talented students. This area of the campaign also provides an opportunity to bring much-needed focus to graduate students. Their work can be some of the most innovative, with meaningful applications in academic and professional fields. Graduate fellowships provide financial aid and research funding for students pursuing advanced degrees and cutting-edge ideas. They are a crucial deciding factor for the top applicants when it comes to choosing URI. Graduate student research often brings prestige and positive coverage for the University, as well.

This year, Professor Brenton DeBoef was named dean of the URI Graduate School. DeBoef has earned numerous honors, including an early career award from the National Science Foundation, the Pfizer Green Chemistry Award, and research and teaching excellence awards from the URI Foundation & Alumni Engagement (URIFAE).

DeBoef is working to attract top applicants across all disciplines, and to position them for success at URI and beyond—students like Nick DaSilva ’14, Ph.D. ’19, who credits the University’s fertile research environment as a key factor for his and his partners’ decision to launch their new drug development company, Alcinous Pharmaceuticals. In the area of the humanities, A. H. Jerriod Avant is pursuing his Ph.D. in English to better understand familial grief, its impact on the poetry he writes, and how such deep emotions can connect people.

URIFAE will be working closely with DeBoef and University leadership to take URI’s graduate programs to the next level through fellowships that will help brilliant emerging scholars bring their biggest ideas to life. •

—Austen Farrell