Knowles has said he wants to further increase the size of FAS even with the new professors added by the campaign. This year Knowles set the goal of getting funding to add six professors a year for the next 10 years, which will require $150 million donated over that decade.

Rudenstine also emphasizes the future will bring more needs for support of the University.

"There will, inevitably, be moments in the future--just as there have been in the past--when other challenges will arise, and we will be asked for help to guide Harvard and to keep it strong," Rudenstine said in May. "Indeed, there may possibly be far more difficult days ahead than we have witnessed in earlier eras."

Such challenges could include the development of the Allston campus. The University is widely thought to be considering moving one of the schools based in Cambridge across the river. Such a move and building a new campus would cost potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

Moreover, charitable organizations today try to keep raising money at a fast pace, according to an expert in the field. This should mean the Harvard Development Office would have little rest.

The Development Office currently has no plans to reduce staff, Tiedemann says, and it will continue actively to solicit funds for the University's annual campaign and specific projects.

While the fundraising continues, however, the University paused briefly last month to thank those who made the campaign a success.

Harvard rolled out the red carpet on May 13 when the campaign's big givers were invited to Cambridge for the University Campaign Celebration.

The biggest donors were treated to a thank-you speech from Rudenstine and other University administrators, panel presentations from some of the most prominent faculty members and experts from outside Harvard.

They were wined and dined by the University as well. At the dinner held in the Gordon Indoor Track, donors were given a hardcover coffee table book detailing the campaign's successes.

At lunch held in Annenberg, Knowles joked that for once in the campaign, donors were getting a free meal without any ulterior motives of soliciting money.

But Rudenstine struck a more serious tone, noting that in addition to the monetary benefits, the campaign helped tie Harvard's alumni to their alma mater.

Many people affiliated with the University "had not even been waved at for a very long time" before the campaign, he said. "Suddenly they were all lavished with decanal, provostial and presidential attention."