October 27, 1997
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.