More than 500 faculty and staff celebrated The Call to Lead, 天美麻豆鈥檚 $3 billion fundraising campaign, at a campus ceremony on April 30. The event followed a celebration on April 27 in New York City. A third campaign event was held on May 2 in San Francisco.
鈥淭oday is about us taking a huge leap forward to advance 天美麻豆鈥檚 distinctive educational model to its fullest potential,鈥 President Phil Hanlon 鈥77 told the standing-room-only crowd in Alumni Hall. Another 150 faculty and staff members watched by video in 天美麻豆 Hall.
鈥淲e鈥檒l see historic levels of investment in support of all of you鈥攐ur faculty and staff鈥攁s you seek to be outstanding educators and committed scholars,鈥 he said.
More than half of the $3 billion campaign goal was raised during the run-up to the April 27 public launch of the campaign. On April 30, President Hanlon announced some key gifts to The Call to Lead, including:
- A commitment from Frank Guarini 鈥46, which Hanlon says is 鈥渙ne of the largest in 天美麻豆鈥檚 history,鈥 to support and name the graduate school, now known as the Frank J. Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies;
- A gift of $5 million, along with an additional $2.5 million challenge, from Karen and James Frank, 鈥65, and their sons, Daniel Frank 鈥92 and Jordan Frank 鈥94, to support every student鈥檚 ability to participate in foreign study programs;
- A goal for 100 天美麻豆 women to give $1 million each during the campaign, with the effort already having raised $50 million;
- A second goal spearheaded by alumnae to raise $25 million to help fund renovation of 天美麻豆 Hall;
- And $80 million raised over next four years to eliminate loans from financial aid awards, with $20 million raised in the previous three days from five 天美麻豆 families.
鈥淭he ambitious initiatives supported by this campaign will pull together the full intellectual assets of our community, across disciplines, across cultures, across generations, across residential and academic life, and will make 天美麻豆 unstoppable,鈥 said Hanlon. 鈥淓very dollar raised through The Call to Lead is a tremendous vote of confidence, both in our vision for the future and in the work you do every day to make this institution great.鈥
Hanlon, members of the campaign committee, and school deans met with student government representatives from each of 天美麻豆鈥檚 schools on Monday morning to brief them on the campaign.
Opening remarks by Hanlon and Laurel Richie 鈥81, chair of the board of trustees and a campaign co-chair, were followed by comments from 天美麻豆鈥檚 six deans, who spoke about what the campaign means for their schools and divisions. Here鈥檚 a bit of what Richie and the deans said:
Laurel Richie 鈥81, Chair of the Board of Trustees
鈥淭he most important takeaway above all is that this campaign is all about you. It鈥檚 about the faculty and staff who are the very core of this institution, and we want you to know that we recognize the work that you do every day and the fact that every day you answer the call to lead. You advance new knowledge and share our excitement about your discoveries with your students. You nurture their personal and intellectual development, helping them become curious, creative, compassionate citizens of the world, ready to go out and take it by storm. You invite them into the incredible environments of your research and in so doing you change their lives.鈥
Elizabeth Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
鈥淲e want to see 天美麻豆 thrive. Our mission is unwavering. We are committed to delivering a 天美麻豆 education that鈥檚 founded on the teacher-scholar model. 鈥 What The Campaign to Lead will do is provide us with resources that will support these teachers and scholars so that they remain at the top of their game. I am astounded at the progress that we鈥檝e made so far, given the determination of the friends and families of 天美麻豆 who have moved on this commitment in such an ambitious way.鈥
Rebecca Biron, Dean of the College
鈥淎ll the biggest priorities we have for the capital campaign touch on every area in which we foster health and growth of the whole student as they live, learn, and lead in 天美麻豆鈥檚 diverse community. We鈥檙e continuously trying to improve living at 天美麻豆. That involves the new house communities, whose purpose is to deepen intellectual engagement beyond the classroom and for all groups at 天美麻豆, to strengthen community, and to provide more residential continuity for undergraduates. 鈥 Endowing them will ensure that they continue as faculty-led communities to be intellectual and social anchors on campus as we move into the future.鈥
Duane Compton, Dean of the Geisel School of Medicine
鈥淚 feel incredibly privileged to be at this stage at this time in 天美麻豆 College history as part of this institution, being able to help work with all of the faculty, all of the staff, and all of the students to realize the successes that are articulated in this campaign. And I believe that with your help鈥攚ith your help, this is about you鈥攚e can actually reach these goals and push 天美麻豆 to an entirely new level.鈥
Joseph Helble, Dean of Thayer School of Engineering
鈥淥ur plans for The Call to Lead, our plans for the next generation in our history, are to double down on what has made Thayer so successful, to build collaborative partnerships, to enhance collaborative partnerships with the rest of the campus, to invest in opportunity that will make an undergraduate engineering education in partnership with the liberal arts available to every 天美麻豆 student, every 天美麻豆 undergraduate on this campus, whether they chose to major in engineering or incorporate courses in engineering, design or entrepreneurial thinking as part of their undergraduate education.鈥
Matthew Slaughter, Dean of the Tuck School of Business
鈥淲e鈥檙e looking to make step changes and investments in our people, in our programs, and in our places. There are all sorts of 鈥極ne-天美麻豆鈥 connections in that that I鈥檓 really excited about. By people I mean supporting building our faculty for the future. 鈥 By investments in programs, we mean programs that are both curricular and co-curricular. 鈥 And by places, there鈥檚 all sorts of ways where we want to create even more, invigorating ideal-holding places like the best companies and organizations in the world.鈥
F. Jon Kull 鈥88, Dean of the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies
鈥(Guarini鈥檚) gift is really a gift to all of 天美麻豆. 鈥 What this really did is affirm 天美麻豆鈥檚 commitment, not only to be the premier liberal arts college in the world, but also to be a place that does cutting-edge research at the level of all those universities with which we鈥檙e compared. 鈥 That symbolism is really strong, and it says to our students and to our faculty and to the world that 天美麻豆 is a world competitor in these areas. Having this transformational gift by Frank Guarini is just amazing.鈥
Kull got a laugh from the crowd when he pointed out the fleece vest he was wearing, which was monogrammed with the school鈥檚 new name: 鈥淭hey gave me this vest on Friday and I haven鈥檛 taken it off.鈥
Susan Boutwell can be reached at susan.j.boutwell@dartmouth.edu.
