The University has launched a campaign to raise $50 million for a needed building program. The new construction will lead to a 75 percent increase in built-up area on campus by the year 2000 compared to 1993. Prof. Yehuda Hayuth announced the campaign during his talk to the Board of Governors following his re-election to the presidency. The Board approved the components of the campaign in resolutions it passed at the conclusion of its 26^th annual meeting.

Here are details on the new buildings that the University plans to erect:

1) New student dormitories. The program is for 450 rooms and the construction will cover some 100,000 square feet. An architect is about to be selected.

2) Complex of four buildings. To be constructed on the other side of the road, across from the Eshkol tower, this complex will cover an overall area of 100,000 square feet. The buildings will be meant for the Faculty of Education, the School of Business Administration, and the Department of Computer Sciences. They will contain 23 lecture halls.

3) IBM Science and Technology Center. A design has been selected, and the modern building to be built, containing state-of-the-art labs for up to 400 researchers, will cover 100,000 square feet.

This $50 million campaign coincides, of course, with Israel's 50th anniversary. It also follows on the heels of the completion of the $26 million, three-building Yitzhak Rabin Complex for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Mathematics, whose central connecting rotunda was glassed-in just before the Governors Meeting.

The President pointed out that in the 26 years between 1967 and 1993—or between the time he entered the University as a freshman and the time he became its vice-president—the University had constructed 85,000 square meters of building space. In the seven years to follow, to the year 2000, it will have added 63,000 square meters, meaning an increase of 75 percent in built-up area during the period he administered the Campus Master Plan.

At its meeting, the Board of Governors approved an operating budget totaling NIS 370 million (approx. $102,800,000 at the time of its approval). The new budget represented a 17% nominal growth (6.3% in real terms) over the previous year. The University has a full-time academic staff numbering 1,012 for a student body of some 13,000 degree aspirants. The Governors were told that the faculty grew by 50 positions (or 5.2%) over last year, while the administrative staff increased by 26 (4.5%) to 605 positions.