Achieving the Extraordinary
Fulbright University Vietnam’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign seeks to mobilize the philanthropic support needed to make Fulbright a leading university in Vietnam and the world by investing in our people, our academic enterprise, and in the physical and institutional infrastructure they need to thrive and grow.
The campaign is organized around five overarching priorities: Spaces for Learning, Student Access & Opportunity, Academic Innovation & Impact, Digital Discovery, and Institutional Durability. Within each of these priorities are multiple focus areas where need and opportunity for impact are greatest.
1. Space for Learning: Creating a 21st Century Campus
- District 9 Permanent Campus: Since 2016, Fulbright has operated out of leased facilities in District 7 (the “Crescent Campus). Our future—including our ability to offer a transformative educational experience and to secure long-term financial stability—depends on the completion of our permanent campus on a 15 hectares site in the Saigon High-Tech Park in District 9. Designed by leading international and Vietnamese architects, our permanent campus will be Vietnam’s first carbon-neutral campus and a living laboratory for environmental sustainability. Inspired by the American liberal arts tradition, infused with Vietnamese culture and heritage, and optimized for 21st century teaching, learning, and creativity our campus will provide a home for Fulbright for decades to come, expanding and evolving as the university grows.
The campus’s first phase will accommodate more than 2,000 students and will feature a range of learning spaces including classrooms equipped with state-of the-art laboratories, computing facilities, maker spaces, libraries, performance areas and studios, as well as living spaces including dormitories and health and wellness and athletic facilities. In addition to providing a home for the Fulbright community, our campus provides a forum for discourse and debate on ideas and issues that matter for Vietnam and the world.
2. Student Access and Opportunity
- Affordability: Fulbright’s undergraduate program in engineering and the liberal arts and sciences costs about $25,000 per year. To ensure that Fulbright is attractive to students of exceptional academic promise and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, the net average tuition—what our students actually pay to attend—is approximately half this price. Fulbright is committed to offering a robust level of financial aid to ensure that talented students can afford their Fulbright education regardless of their families’ financial circumstances.
- Global Citizenship: The Fulbright name is synonymous with international exchange and engagement. To prepare our students for success in globalized world, it is vital that every Fulbright student benefits from the opportunity to participate in an international learning experience. Our goal is to offer meaningful study abroad programs at a cost to students that does not exceed what they pay to study on the Fulbright campus.
- Preparing for a Lifetime of Success: Learning outside the classroom plays a vital role in equipping students with the hands-on experiences, self-confidence, and professional and leadership skills needed for success after college. These capabilities can be acquired through internships, group-based and individual projects and other forms of civic engagement that constitute a unique dimension of the Fulbright experience. Our holistic approach to career development means that from their earliest days on campus, Fulbright students benefit from mentoring and support aimed at preparing them for success in whatever career path they chose. By the time they graduate, Fulbright students will be as comfortable co-creating a business strategy for a rural agricultural cooperative as they are managing a project for an urban tech start-up.
3. Academic Innovation and Impact: Teaching, Research, and Engagement
- Hiring Outstanding Teacher-Scholars: Together with exceptional students, dedicated and talented faculty are the lifeblood of our learning community. Recruiting and retaining outstanding teacher-scholars requires more than just the ability to offer attractive compensation packages that incentivize our highest performing faculty. Robust support—in the form of funding and infrastructure—is essential to accelerate inquiry, catalyze innovative collaborations across disciplines, and pursue new initiatives.
- Incubating Culture and the Arts: Fulbright’s commitment to incubating culture is underpinned by our devotion to the study of Vietnam’s unique artistic and cultural heritage, combined with programs that enable students to participate in the creative and performing arts through curricular and co-curricular activities. Initiatives that bring artists to campus, Fulbright supports and engages with Vietnam’s vibrant artistic and creative communities.
- Educating Public and Private Sector Leaders: Befitting our origins as Vietnam’s first school of public policy, Fulbright is committed to providing exceptional graduate professional education that combines global best practice with a unparalleled insight into Vietnam’s unique context. The Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management is expanding its mandate to include business education with a focus on the challenges and opportunities facing Vietnam’s private sector executives and entrepreneurs in a time of unprecedented technological change and a rapidly shifting international economic and business landscape.
- Pursuing Creative Solutions to Vietnam’s Grand Challenges: Climate Change. Green Energy. Urbanization. Knowledge-driven economic development. Public Governance. Like all societies, Vietnam faces a raft of looming grand challenges and public problems. Through faculty and student research and policy analysis and active participation in national and global quests for impactful responses, Fulbright works tirelessly to seek actionable solutions that advance the wellbeing and prosperity of Vietnam and the global community.
4. Digital Discovery: Technology for Progress and Development
- Pioneering AI and Technology Education for Vietnam: Fulbright seeks to enhance Vietnam’s ability to leverage AI’s potential for positive transformation and strengthen its resilience in the face of negative effects. Our approach combines the science of AI—together with computer science and engineering—with the liberal arts to prepare Fulbright students to be ethical practitioners and stewards of this uniquely powerful technologies. Overcoming the formidable obstacles to building a cutting-edge AI educational program—first and foremost the scarcity and expense of faculty talent—requires an entrepreneurial, networked strategy that mobilizes the global community of Vietnamese technologists and entrepreneurs and leverages our partnership with the University of Texas System and other academic partners.
- Harnessing technological innovation to elevate human wellbeing: Fulbright’s deep expertise in Vietnam’s socioeconomic development combined with our commitment to AI and emerging technologies makes us very well-positioned to undertaken action-oriented research aimed at harnessing technology to achieve breakthroughs in human development and the health and sustainability of the environment. We are particularly optimistic that breakthroughs can be achieved in areas such as healthcare and education, where AI and related technologies combined with rich troves of data can be deployed to leapfrog systemic limitations to provide effective, personalized services and opportunities that enhance and empower the Vietnamese people.
5. Institutional Durability: Building a thriving, future-focused university
- Current-use funds for mission-critical operations and emerging opportunities: From financial aid to student wellness, libraries to hackathons, Fulbright’s operating budget funds a wide range of essential activities and services. By complementing the university’s other sources of revenue, unrestricted current-use gifts ensure the vibrancy of our growing learning community and provide the Fulbright leadership with the flexibility to pursue emerging opportunities. Every contribution, no matter the size, makes a difference.
- Investing in long-term sustainability through the Fulbright endowment: As a young institution, Fulbright is overwhelmingly focused on achieving urgent near-term priorities including the completion of our permanent campus and the continued strengthening and expansion of our flagship academic programs. These imperatives must shape our fundraising goals. We also recognize that a growing endowment can provide invaluable long-term financial predictability and stability for the university.
