NEWS SUMMARY _________________________
Ron Olson, a former student of Drake University, has donated $5 million to the university’s Center for Public Democracy. The center has been renamed the Ron and Jane Olson Center for Public Democracy. The university plans to use the funds to expand its efforts to teach future generations about civic leadership and participatory democracy. The center aims to strengthen the practice of participatory democracy through teachings in shared governance, healthy debate, and collaboration for a better, collective future.
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by Brooklyn Draisey, Iowa Capital Dispatch
October 6, 2023
(This article was first published Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Photo Credit: Ron Olson speaks at Drake University about the $5 million gift he and his wife gave to the university’s center of public democracy. (Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
When Ron Olson addressed the journalists in Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium during a press conference Friday, he asked them to not focus on the gift he and his wife, Jane Olson, were giving to the university, but rather on what the university gave to him.
His time at the private university instilled values of community and leadership that he’s utilized throughout his life, he said, and with a large monetary gift, he hopes that the university will continue to support students as they seek to address problems facing democracy in the U.S.
“Nothing’s more important to Jane and me … than the next generation, and that’s what you all are,” Olson said to students in the crowd. “That’s why I am hoping this institution, Drake, in its entirety, and the center especially, will inspire you all to go on and do great things. We’re a country that needs them.”
The couple has gifted Drake University $5 million for its Center for public democracy, which has been renamed the Ron and Jane Olson Center for Public Democracy. The university plans to use the funds to expand its efforts to teach future generations about civic leadership and participatory democracy.
The center’s goal is to strengthen the practice of participatory democracy, Co-Executive Director Rachel Paine Caufield said, through teachings in shared governance, healthy debate, and collaboration for a better, collective future.
Practices like civility and disagreement without aggression are increasingly rare in today’s political climate, Ron Olson said, and he wishes to see the center instill them in young people who could soon become the country’s political leaders.
Scott Raecker, co-founder of the public democracy center and executive director of the Robert D. and Billie Ray Center, said the gift will be spread out across all areas of the center’s programming, from scholarships to programming both within the center and to engage other areas of campus to travel opportunities and bringing guests to Des Moines to interact with students. Funds will also go toward constructing a physical space for the center on campus.
He and others at the university are honored to receive the gift, he said, and to have the chance to make a positive impact on a national scale.
“I believe Drake is the epicenter for democratic practices, civil dialogue and action focused on supporting healthy democracy and we have the demonstrable outcomes already to support that statement,” Raecker said. “And that’s just the foundation we start from. When we connect our collective power and impact with the respective enterprises across Drake and focus with intention, as we have with our colleagues on collaborative opportunities, we will most certainly enrich the public good.”
The gift puts the university’s campus-wide fundraising campaign at over $200 million. The One’s Campaign has a goal of raising $225 million to increase student access and opportunity, fund capital projects, enrich programs, and more.
Raya Hoppe, a second-year Drake University student studying law, politics, and society and strategic political communication, said the gift will allow more students like her to strive to become better leaders and change the political landscape into something less hostile and overwhelming, so better work can get done.
It’s a cliche, she said, but if young people like her won’t do it, who will?
“It’s entirely important for us to start promoting civil discourse, and we’re just hoping that it kind of just catches on fire and continues to grow,” Hoppe said.
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