Carnegie Mellon University yesterday announced a campaign to raise $1 billion, an amount aimed at advancing endeavors from new scholarships and campus life enhancements to research and teaching.

The campaign, which began in 2003, has so far raised $550 million toward its goal. Despite a worsening recession, Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon expressed confidence regarding donor support given the generosity already shown and the school's record of innovation.

"People are hurting and it's not a good time to be asking for money. We understand that," he said by phone. "We went ahead despite that because we take a long-term view."

Universities are catalysts for economic recovery, he said. Activities that stand to benefit from the campaign will enable his institution that is home to 16 Nobel laureates to become "an even bigger force for positive change in society," he added.

"There is just no better investment than investing in Carnegie Mellon because we do produce so much per dollar," he said.

The university hopes to reach its goal in 2013, and the campaign has as its chairman Raymond J. Lane, school trustee and general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The drive is targeting four key areas: gathering money for scholarships, fellowships and student life initiatives; faculty recruiting and retention; encouraging innovation; and enhancing campus buildings and various other facilities.

The amount raised so far is already the largest of any campaign in the school's history. The biggest gifts so far are:

• $55 million in 2004 from alumnus David Tepper and his wife, Marlene, to the graduate business school now named in his honor, the biggest the university's history.

• $25 million from the Richard King Mellon Foundation toward life science initiatives.

• $22 million from The Heinz Endowments to support initiatives in public policy and the sciences.

• $20 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to start construction of the Gates Center for Computer Science, part of its new computer science complex.

• $10 million from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation for the Hillman Center for Future-Generation Technologies.

Dr. Cohon said Carnegie Mellon's endowment of roughly $1 billion is a fraction of that of the dozen or so schools it considers close competitors -- a list that includes MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern universities.

That places the school at a disadvantage both in the ability to provide need-based scholarships and in recruiting and retaining sought-after faculty.

Carnegie Mellon is the second major university in the region to go public with a campaign in recent days, following Duquesne University's Oct. 10 announcement about its own $150 million drive. The University of Pittsburgh has raised $1.3 billion toward its $2 billion campaign goal.

All three will be closely watching to see what effect the stock market plunge this month will have on giving.

According to the New York City-based Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, fundraisers in July were projecting continued but slower growth in giving. The group said it's too soon to know how the market turmoil will affect that projection.

Voluntary support to colleges grew by 6.3 percent in 2007 to $29.8 billion, according to data from the Council for Aid to Education. Fundraising gains have averaged 7 percent yearly the last two decades.