In March 2016, Johns Hopkins announced that it was extending its successful Rising to the Challenge campaign by a year, with the goal of raising an additional $500 million to further increase student aid, bolster faculty and clinician support, and use research to address critical issues facing our communities and the world.

Rising to the Challenge is now a $5 billion campaign representing a historic effort by Johns Hopkins supporters to find interdisciplinary solutions to some of humanity’s most important problems. The campaign has so far generated commitments of over $4.6 billion from more than 244,500 donors, surpassing the previously announced $4.5 billion goal well before mid-2017, the originally planned end date.

A highlight of the extended campaign goals has been the expanded support being made available to students in terms of both helping them pay for their education and increasing the caliber of their Hopkins experience. For example, in October 2016, the Clark Scholars Program was established in the Whiting School of Engineering to provide financial aid and enhanced learning opportunities for undergraduate engineering students; the program was made possible through a $15 million gift from the Clark Charitable Foundation—the largest-ever endowed scholarship given to Johns Hopkins.

Photo: These 10 Whiting School of Engineering freshmen are the inaugural class of Clark Scholars.