Palm Desert Leader Assures Scholarships

As the co-chair of CSUSB's fundraising campaign for the Palm Desert campus since the mid-90s, Betty Barker knows how crucial private support is to higher education in the Coachella Valley. When she teamed with Dick Oliphant, who galvanized community and CSU leaders around the idea of a permanent CSU satellite campus in the desert, Betty had extensive fundraising successes for charity to her credit. Her can-do spirit and leadership were pivotal to raising the nearly $35 million to build permanent Cal State facilities on land donated by the City of Palm Desert. In fact, she was dubbed "Mrs. Moneyraiser" by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who she convinced to travel to Palm Desert to speak at the exclusive, private dedication of the Annenberg Wing of the campus in early 2005. So as the university prepared to break ground in the final phase of its initial buildings for the Palm Desert campus, Betty approached CSUSB about making a personal contribution to the desert campus via a charitable gift annuity. The gift annuity is a means of making a long-term gift to benefit the campus while realizing an attractive annual income payment during the donor's lifetime. "I've come full circle - I'm now on the other side (of the campaign) as a donor to the campus and I'm thrilled that I've been able to do it this way," she said.