a year for enduring mission & bold vision
In a year of rapid change across higher education, one thing remains clear: Portland State matters—to hardworking students pursuing opportunity, to a city shaped by innovation and to the donors and partners whose generosity keeps access to education strong. This year, your support powered scholarships and student services, advanced faculty and program excellence and fueled research that pushes our region forward.
Your giving also reinforced PSU’s role as a vital anchor for Portland—physically, culturally and economically. By investing in the people, ideas and neighborhoods that surround us, you helped ensure that PSU continues to open doors, strengthen communities and deliver on its mission of access and impact.
Thank you for believing in PSU and in the future we are building together.
Stepping up for students
PSU students reflect the richness of our communities. They bring talent and tenacity to campus—and often the joy of being the first in their families to attend college. Thanks to donor contributions, more students are finding their place, accessing the aid they need, and preparing for purpose-driven careers.
Support for Students by the numbers
$8.7M
RAISED FOR STUDENTS
1,800
STUDENTS RECEIVED SCHOLARSHIPS OR AWARDS
$5.6M
RAISED FOR SCHOLARSHIPS
$561K
DISTRIBUTED IN EMERGENCY FUNDS
MEET
PSU'S
STUDENTS
20,470
TOTAL ENROLLMENT
86%
FROM OREGON
78%
RECEIVE FINANCIAL AID
Featured Gift
Damian Lillard Builds Bridges for Students
This year Portland Trailblazer and NBA All Star Damian Lillard launched a scholarship program recognizing the academic success of students graduating from nine East Bay California high schools. Scholars receive $25,000 per year, significantly reducing the costs associated with out-of-state tuition.
Selected scholars will also receive support to cover such expenses as food, housing, clothing, textbooks and transportation. Additional donors from the Portland community have augmented Lillard’s generous lead gift to cover students’ unanticipated financial needs.
“I’m so happy this scholarship has come to fruition,” said Lillard, a graduate of Oakland High School. “Students from my community in the East Bay now have an opportunity to pursue a college education in my adopted community of Portland without financial burdens. My hope is that this scholarship becomes a stepping stone to a bright and promising future for students.”
Receiving the Lillard Scholarship means so much to me because it takes away the financial stress from my mom, and it reminds me that everything we’ve been through was worth it.
Kayla Sisavat
2025-26 Lillard Scholarship Recipient
55%
RECEIVE PELL GRANTS
56%
IDENTIFY AS BIPOC
43%
IDENTIFY AS FIRST GEN
20%
HAVE CHILDREN
Student Impact Stories
The stories below demonstrate the powerful and personal impact that donor contributions have had on 2025 graduates and current students.
“My passion for engineering came through being inspired by those who’ve had access to learning. I admire leaders like Dr. Aisha Walcott-Bryant, who applies smart infrastructure solutions to improve urban living in Africa, and Dr. Paul Chinowsky, who focuses on climate-resilient infrastructure. Both have used their education to create real-world impact.
I am currently pursuing my master’s degree in civil engineering and plan to continue with a Ph.D., focusing on earthquake hazard mitigation and resilient infrastructure. I aspire to develop innovative solutions that make infrastructure safer and more sustainable, especially in regions vulnerable to natural disasters.
I never imagined I would be where I am today, pursuing higher education and working toward fulfilling my dreams. My journey has been made possible because of generous donors like you. Your support means the world to me. It’s helping shape my future and giving me the chance to achieve what once felt out of reach."
— Fadzai Zivanai ’26 | Civil Engineering | Scholarship Recipient
Dorotea Lopez Perez’s path to becoming a school counselor was shaped by her experiences as a multilingual learner and a desire to help students overcome hurdles she too had faced.
“Latino low-income students in particular aren’t always aware of the many opportunities available to them. We can empower students to make informed choices and feel confident about their future by planting the seed early. It’s about giving them knowledge and a vision of what they can become.”
While at PSU, Lopez Perez created a program where elementary, middle and high school students from historically marginalized communities could explore their strengths and learn about college and career opportunities—helping them break through barriers and find belonging and ultimately success. Lopez Perez is now working as a full-time counselor in a local elementary school.
“I want to show students that their dreams are possible!”
— Dorotea Lopez Perez '25 | Counseling | Scholarship Recipient
While working in the Oregon Legislature, Zack Surmacz couldn’t help but notice that many of the people he admired most had something in common: they were PSU alumni. This led him to pursue PSU’s Master of Public Policy program, where he found a community that fueled both his academic and personal growth.
At PSU, Surmacz became an advocate for student connection through his work in student government and within the College of Urban and Public Affairs. Beyond the classroom, he found belonging in unexpected places—like singing in the community choir led by Hinckley Assistant Professor of Choir, Music Education and Social Justice Coty Raven Morris.
“PSU is a special place, I feel like I had a direct voice in the future of PSU and how it will serve students and the city going forward.”
Surmacz graduated from PSU this year with a clear purpose: to serve in government and work toward a more just and equitable future.
— Zack Surmacz '25 | Public Policy | Student Leader
The Faculty Factor
Behind every transformative student experience is a faculty member who inspires, challenges and leads with purpose. From support for endowed positions to program and research funding, gifts made this year supporting faculty helped attract and retain the teachers, researchers and mentors whose efforts shaped classrooms, communities and fields of study.
New Momentum for Korean Studies
A newly endowed fund is supporting standout Professor Hyeyoung Woo at Portland State. The flexible support is helping Woo’s vision to develop Korean Studies programs that connect classrooms, scholarship and community, one of only a few such programs in North America and the first of its kind in Oregon.
Woo is a leading sociologist of education, work and family in the U.S. and Korea, currently studying how workfamily dynamics shape long-term health outcomes for women in Korea.
This investment, made by Peter and Helen Chun, gives Woo new capacity to expand learning opportunities for students, provide research collaborations for faculty, and connect Korean and Korean American community, creating a vibrant hub for Korean Studies in Oregon.
$3M RAISED FOR FACULTY SUPPORT
Featured Gifts
Strength in Numbers
A year of outreach
A university’s strength is measured by the might of its community—those who show up, speak up and give back. This year alumni, students, faculty, advocates and friends came together to champion PSU’s mission in powerful ways. From giving testimony in Salem to grassroots fundraising campaigns to community-based volunteering, it was a year of stand-up action.
In FY25, 3,500 community members & alumni attended PSU Foundation or Alumni Association events, lectures and volunteer activities.
A record 1,500 donors, including alumni and the broader PSU community, gave $323,000 during grassroots days of giving. Half of those donors were first-time contributors to PSU.
In the last two years, nearly 8,000 emails to legislators were deployed by hundreds of alumni and community members to help deliver the university’s legislative agenda.
A record number of alumni marched with PSU in the 2025 Portland Pride Parade, the largest LGBTQ+ event in Oregon.
More than 130 alumni & friends completed projects to beautify campus during the Alumni Association’s annual “Serve the City” volunteer work day
PSU & the PSU Foundation partnered with KOIN on a storytelling bonanza highlighting campus happenings, student success and alumni businesses.
ADVOCACY IN ACTION
Nearly 200 alumni and community members registered for the 2025 Lobby Day in Salem, standing alongside PSU students, staff and faculty at the Capitol to champion the university’s priorities.
The Power of Place
At an urban university, place matters. It’s not just about buildings, it’s about shaping a campus that reflects the energy of the city it serves and the people who bring it to life. By supporting extraordinary new facilities and compelling outdoor spaces, donors are transforming where learning happens and how people feel when they visit a downtown campus.
Making PSU a place
The university has launched a long-term project to enhance its 44-acre campus, creating beautiful and inspiring spaces to serve students and faculty, and to attract visitors and partners to a vibrant downtown. Unfolding over a decade, the effort will be funded largely by philanthropy.
Renowned urban planners Walker Macy Collaborative have outlined a first project phase to include new campus gateways, branded banners and signage, a reimagined street corridor and green spaces, and distinctive murals across campus. This year donors including Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle contributed $600,000 to help move forward these exciting efforts.
I believe Portland's success goes hand in hand with PSU’s. Placemaking will enhance both the university's campus and the city's vitality
TIM BOYLE
CEO, Columbia Sportswear and placemaking donor
$3.2M PROJECT DONATED TO CURRENT & PLANNED CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS ON CAMPUS
portland's bold arts + culture vision
PSU and the City of Portland are together working on a once-in-a-generation vision to spark arts and culture in Oregon— and a downtown resurgence—by bringing an extraordinary complex to the southern edge of the Portland State campus.
Set to open in 2030, the Performing Arts + Culture Center will include a Broadway theater owned by the City of Portland, and a privately-owned hotel and conference center. It will also include a community theater and additional academic spaces—all to be owned by PSU.
The center will help turn south downtown into one of Oregon’s premier cultural destinations, support and expand PSU’s renowned arts programs, make possible new workforce programs, and give our region’s fragile arts and culture ecosystem a huge jolt of energy.
In 2025, $12.5 million was pledged by donors to support the center, and $135 million was committed in bond financing by the State of Oregon to jumpstart planning for this landmark effort.
Vernier Science Center Inspires
One year after opening its doors, the true impact of the donor-supported Vernier Science Center (VSC) is being felt in powerful, everyday ways. Designed through a nationally distinct process to center student voices and Indigenous values, the VSC has become an expression of belonging, identity and purpose. It is also making a meaningful difference in how faculty approach their work and serve students.
It’s something special. We are all here in community for the students. Connections are being created out of proximity.
PATTI CABRERA-PEREZ
Program coordinator, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM
Coming from an arts background, science spaces can feel overwhelming. Learning in a space that’s an Indigenous kitchen oriented around science is just so awesome. The sense of community in that space is unmatched.
ISLA VOGELSAND
Recent PSU graduate
A YEAR OF IMPACT
Here's what your collective impact looked like
$47.3M
Raised for students, faculty and campus
1,368
FIRST-TIME DONORS JOINED OUR COMMUNITY
4,202
DONORS SUPPORTED PSU
80%
OF DONORS GAVE $1,000 OR LESS
22%
OF DONORS GAVE MULTIPLE TIMES
Donor support enabled me progress through my program with a reduced burden and stress. I am now working toward my dream of becoming a CPA and supporting my family.
TASNEEM ANJARY ’26
Make a lasting impact
Your generosity can open doors, spark ideas, and change lives. A planned gift to Portland State University is a meaningful way to support students, faculty, and the programs that shape our community. It’s simple, flexible, and allows you to adjust as life evolves— while making a lasting difference that reflects what matters most to you.
Easy ways to give
Include PSU in your will or living trust
Name PSU as a beneficiary of your retirement account
Give a life insurance policy you no longer need
Create a gift that provides you with steady income
Donate property or other assets to make a significant contribution
We felt we could make a big difference at PSU. We want to help people in our community get a better education. Go Viks!
GREG AND BETH MADDEN
EPLER SOCIETY MEMBERS