“The support provided by the Jackson-Hope Fund has been critical to developing new academic initiatives and cultivating those initiatives into flagship programs, such as the VMI Center for Undergraduate Research. The result has been a surge in our academic program that has helped us rise in several national rankings of colleges and universities, and we attribute this success in great part to the Jackson-Hope Fund’s benefactors,” said Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III ’62, VMI superintendent. “In addition, the Jackson-Hope Fund provides 75 percent of the funds the Institute commits to faculty development, and it has enabled us to continue hiring new teachers when most colleges and universities in the nation are cutting back.”
With an endowment of nearly $50 million, the fund provides a unique source of support for especially promising academic initiatives that might otherwise languish in competition for the Institute’s resources.
Named after the Jackson-Hope Medal, the annual cadet award for the highest academic achievement, the fund directly benefits cadets and faculty through innovative advancements in the academic program, guided by the goals and objectives set forth in VMI’s Vision 2039 and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Quality Enhancement Plan.
The Jackson-Hope Fund is distinctive in that contributions are made with no specific purpose other than to support academics, and principal donors are actively involved in the process by approving the Institute’s use of the funds and monitoring performance. Since its inception in 2001, the fund has provided nearly $24 million in grants in support of key academic initiatives. This support has been instrumental in many of the successes of VMI’s academic program.
