THE COLUMBIA ENDOWMENT YOUR FISCAL YEAR 2018 LASTING IMPACT giving.columbia.edu COMMITTED TO ACTION ith a reported investment return of nine percent for “BY DEVELOPING OUR CAMPUSES, the 2018 fiscal year, the value of Columbia University’s FOSTERING INNOVATIVE W endowment has reached a record $10.9 billion. Such sustained growth in the endowment allows the University to PROGRAMS, AND EXPANDING OUR build out its leadership, from discoveries in the classroom and the PRESENCE AROUND THE GLOBE, laboratory to breakthrough projects taking on some of the world’s COLUMBIA HAS SET THE STAGE FOR most urgent and complex challenges. That leadership is made possible by the University’s endowment donors, and we thank you GREATER IMPACT.” again for your lasting impact. This fall we opened The Forum, a gleaming conference center that investments in people. Endowment gifts ensure that we are growing completes the first set of three buildings on our new Manhattanville in ways beyond just buildings and campuses, that we are not only an campus, all designed by Renzo Piano. With a 437-seat auditorium institution, but a global community sharing a commitment to do more and open design, it is our first-ever building dedicated to academic for our students and the world. conference and public discussion. Like the entire new campus, with its through streets and public spaces, it is designed to connect to Gifts to Columbia’s endowment support some of the world’s most the city and world around us, and to foster ideas that lead to action. talented students and faculty, energized by the promise of a Columbia It’s in the very name. As President Lee C. Bollinger remarked at the that is building for the future. Architect Renzo Piano has said of opening, “a forum also indicates the making of decisions, the making Manhattanville, “This is not like the campus of earlier centuries…it of choices, and a commitment to action.” is a new story.” The University’s endowment donors are helping to write that next chapter. The Forum houses Columbia World Projects, a new institution applying the University’s research knowledge through creative partnerships to address problems on a scale of years, not decades. Sincerely, Columbia World Projects and The Forum are also home to The Obama Foundation Scholars at Columbia University, whose inaugural cohort arrived this fall to further their skills as leaders already transforming their societies around the globe. Amelia J. Alverson Executive Vice President for University Development In recent decades, Columbia has been able to build new structures, and Alumni Relations whether physical or organizational, to carry our mission forward. That progress is in no small part thanks to the generosity and vision of philanthropic partners. By developing our campuses, fostering innovative programs, and expanding our presence around the globe, Columbia has set the stage for greater impact. But, as the stories in this report reflect, we have also grown in less visible ways. Because of the generosity of endowment donors, we can make critical JEANNETTE M. WING, PHD AVANESSIANS DIRECTOR OF THE DATA SCIENCE INSTITUTE AND PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE COMMITTED TO TRANSFORMATION hile pursuing a degree in electrical engineering professions, Columbia is ideally positioned to lead and promote this at MIT in the 1970s, Jeannette Wing got her first transformation. W exposure to the then-young field of computer Wing is also a strong advocate of multidisciplinary, collaborative science. “It just blew me away,” she recalls, “specifically lambda research. To this end, she is drawing on more than 300 affiliated calculus, which I found beautiful and elegant and appealed to my faculty in 12 schools at Columbia to expand the Data Science mathematical sensibilities.” Institute’s impact on research and education, from precision Before switching her major, though, she called her father, at the medicine and public policy to the humanities and the arts. “By time a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia. “I wanted working together and across disciplines, we can aspire to achieve his take on whether computer science was just a fad,” she says. “He more than we can by working alone,” she says. assured me it was not, so I went with it and never looked back.” As an example, she cites a group of faculty from several schools After earning her that she has organized to bachelor’s, master’s, work on what she calls and doctoral degrees “THE EMERGING FIELD OF DATA SCIENCE “trustworthy artificial in computer science HAS THE POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM ALL intelligence.” She explains: from MIT, Wing taught FIELDS OF INQUIRY. WE ARE PROUD TO “The question is, can at Carnegie Mellon we build tools that can University and served ADVANCE THIS INITIATIVE AT COLUMBIA BY automatically determine twice as head of its SUPPORTING JEANNETTE’S LEADERSHIP.” whether a model that renowned computer —ARMEN A. AVANESSIANS has been produced by a science department. machine-learned algorithm Her influential 2006 is fair or not. This would essay, “Computational Thinking,” helped breathe new life into the involve new verification techniques, new specification languages, field. She later held executive positions at the National Science and even formally defining what a given notion of fairness is.” Foundation and Microsoft Research, where she became known for These are the sorts of challenging, nuanced problems Wing embracing bold ideas. believes only an institution like Columbia is prepared to tackle. Wing now serves as the inaugural Avanessians Director “In many ways, data science is where computer science was in the of the Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer 1970s,” she says. “Fortunately, Columbia has been developing a Science at Columbia. Established in 2017 with a gift from Armen foundation for years and has a head start in defining this new field.” A. Avanessians, a 1983 Fu Foundation School of Engineering and As a teenager, Wing once asked her father to explain to her what Applied Science graduate and current University Trustee, and engineering is. He told her that it is applying mathematics to solve his wife Janette, the directorship represents what Wing sees as a real-world problems. That answer, which first sparked her interest once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help define a new academic field. decades ago, remains central to the value system that drives her Central to that effort is the philosophy of “Data for Good.” work to this day. “At Columbia, we are harnessing the power of data science to “I am a hopeless academic at heart,” says Wing. “Discovering new transform all disciplines, drive exploration, provide insights, and knowledge, teaching the next generation of scholars and leaders, make predictions to inform better decisions,” says Wing. “‘Data doing things that impact society and our communities, while having for Good’ means using that power responsibly and ethically to the freedom to pursue big ideas—it’s exciting. It’s like being an tackle society’s greatest challenges.” She believes that, as a full- entrepreneur all the time.” fledged university with excellence in all fields, disciplines, and 3 COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT COMPANY (IMC) he Columbia Investment Management Company (IMC) management arenas, Wall Street, and the corporate sector. On a is a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia University. The day-to-day basis, the IMC is run by its management team, headed TIMC is charged with managing the bulk of the University’s by the IMC CEO. endowment, known as Managed Assets. Managed Assets do not include the University’s real estate holdings, certain charitable giving The goal of the IMC is to generate attractive long-term risk- vehicles, or a variety of other gifts that have investment restrictions. adjusted returns, subject to the risk and return objectives of the University. The IMC’s approach is long term and not based upon The IMC is governed by a Board consisting of University quarterly or even annual market movements. Therefore, while Trustees, non-Trustee members, the President of the University, the IMC actively manages and evaluates investment strategy and the Executive Vice President for Finance and Information performance on an ongoing basis, meaningful evaluation of its Technology, and the CEO of the IMC. Both Trustee and non- performance and efforts can be made only on a multiyear basis. Trustee members are highly distinguished professionals from a The IMC believes that such an approach is the most reliable variety of financial backgrounds, including various investment manner of generating strong long-term risk-adjusted returns. CURRENT IMC BOARD Andrew Barth ’83CC, ’85BUS—Chair, University Trustee Shaiza Rizavi ’96BUS Mark T. Gallogly ’86BUS—Vice Chair, University Trustee V-Nee Yeh ’84LAW Mark E. Kingdon ’71CC—University Trustee Emeritus Lee C. Bollinger ’71LAW—President of the University* Jonathan Lavine ’88CC—University Trustee Anne Sullivan—Executive Vice President for Finance and Information Technology of the University** Larry Lawrence ’69GS, ’71BUS Peter Holland—CEO of Columbia IMC** Alexander Navab ’87CC—University Trustee *ex officio **ex officio and nonvoting 4 MANAGING COLUMBIA’S ENDOWMENT HOW IS IT DONE? olumbia manages almost 100 percent of its endowment assets through one commingled pool. This pool is DISTRIBUTIONS FROM C governed by investment policies approved by the Board of THE ENDOWMENT the Columbia Investment Management Company (see “Columbia Investment Management Company” opposite). Some 5,500 FACULTY AND UNRESTRICTED individual Columbia endowment funds (except those required by RESEARCH law or donor restriction to be maintained separately) are invested by unit and shared in one aggregated body of funds. This enables the University to take advantage of different investment styles and vehicles to provide a higher total return over time while 25% 30% maintaining an acceptable level of risk. In sum, pooling these funds together spreads the benefits of asset diversification among all appropriate endowment funds.