Middlebury College Announces Launch of $200 Million

Capital Campaign: Largest Fundraising

Effort Ever Coincides with Continued Growth of College, Culminating

in College’s 200-Year Anniversary

John M. McCardell, Jr., president of Middlebury College,

recently announced at a College event that Middlebury is launching

a campaign to raise $200 million-the largest capital campaign

in the school’s history and one of the biggest fundraising efforts

ever initiated by a college of Middlebury’s size. McCardell said

that during the planning phases of the campaign, the College has

raised $80 million of the $200 million goal. Called the Bicentennial

Campaign, the fundraising effort will culminate in the year 2000,

when Middlebury College celebrates the 200th anniversary of its

founding.

According to McCardell, “Middlebury College

has never been stronger. Applicant numbers are at an all-time

high and the College’s international reputation for academic excellence

is growing. This fundraising goal is a bold one, but it is within

our reach and it will ensure that the Middlebury of the future

will be even stronger than the Middlebury of today.”

Claire Gargalli, chair of the College’s

board of trustees, said that Middlebury already has received four

gifts of approximately $5 million: $5 million from Mr. and Mrs.

David Jones of Louisville, Ky., for the Language Schools; $5 million

from Louis Marx of New York City for enhancement of the sciences;

a third anonymous gift of like amount; and a $4.7 million grant

from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to facilitate the collaborative

development of technology-enhanced language instruction among

62 liberal arts colleges.

“With such generous donors stepping

forward so early in the campaign, I’m very confident that it will

be a success,” said Gargalli.

Of the $200 million goal, the College plans to allocate

$50 million towards the academic program; $50 million to construction

and renovation of facilities; $35 million to endowed scholarships;

$30 million to endowed professorships; and $35 million to current

operations.

The Bicentennial Campaign coincides with the continuation

of the College’s current phase of growth. Middlebury has been

gradually increasing the size of its student body and will expand

each entering class until the current number of approximately

2,000 students enlarges to 2,350 by the year 2002. The College

is reviewing all aspects of student residential life to pursue

the opportunities for improvement that this growth may present.

Middlebury will continue to grow in other areas as

well. An increase is taking place in the size of the faculty,

which will enlarge by 30 members by the year 2002. The College

also is involved in several construction and renovation projects

now taking place across the campus. Earlier in the day of his

announcement of the Bicentennial Campaign, McCardell presided

at the groundbreaking ceremony for Bicentennial Hall, a new science

center and one of a number of current College building projects

that include a hockey rink and several student residences.