Spectrum
Many Lake Forest students benefit from scholarship aid. generous donors created 77 new scholarships in the Campaign. Photo by Bruce Powell.
We did it! And we have you to thank
The goals of the campaign
The 150th Anniversary Campaign kicked off in 2007, the College’s sesquicentennial year. The goals were simple and straightforward: to increase the endowment, construct vital new facilities including the Mohr Student Center and Stuart Commons, Buchanan Hall, and the Sports and Recreation Center, and increase annual contributions from alumni donors.
“These goals were critically important,” said President Stephen D. Schutt. “I’m thrilled that we reached them, thanks to the Campaign, and the College is now well positioned to make continuing progress.
“Building the endowment will be a priority for many years to come, but we’re well ahead of where we were several years ago, and I’m confident that our success will breed more success. Likewise, campus development is an ongoing task for any ambitious college like Lake Forest, but the facilities completed during this Campaign have dramatically improved the campus experience for current students. And the steady growth in our Annual Fund has strengthened our operating budget across the board.”
Campaign Thank You!
President Schutt commended the outstanding Campaign leadership of trustee co-chairs Tyler Cain ’64, William Parfet ’70, and Daniel Dolan ’80. He also praised Honorary Campaign Chairman Wesley M. Dixon Jr. and the two successive chairmen of the Board of Trustees during the Campaign, Peter G. Schiff ’74 and Robert D. Krebs.
“The trustee leadership team we’ve had for this Cam- paign was incredible,” Schutt added. “Thanks to the efforts of Tyler, Bill, Dan, Wes and our two board chairs, the whole Board of Trustees actively and generously contributed to the Campaign. The same goes for our Alumni Board under the leadership of Marsha Anderson ’68. As a result, trustees, alumni, parents and friends of the College from across the country and around the world enthusiastically embraced this Campaign.”
Establishing a strong base
Despite the economic recession, a growing number of College donors continued to give generously to the Campaign. “The Lake Forest community understands the value of the College to their community,” explained Krebs, chairman of the Board of Trustees since 2008. “They get that the College brings them cultural and learning opportunities they otherwise would not have in the area.”
Many saw the Campaign as a way to make a lasting difference. An August 2007 Wall Street Journal article on Lake Forest College featured several non-alumni supporters who made major gifts to the Campaign because their return on investment was so much greater than it would have been at the large universities they attended. As the article reported, the late Lake Bluff resident and College Life Trustee Laurence Lee gave millions to the College, much more than to his own alma mater.
“My money means a lot more to Lake Forest,” he told the newspaper.
Truer words were never spoken. Fueled by the 150th Anniversary Campaign, the College has grown in a number of exciting and tangible ways.
The College has expanded its educational offerings to appeal to more students from across the nation and around the world.
Popular new majors and minors in finance, neuroscience, legal studies, cinema studies, and innovative new accelerated and joint-degree programs in law, education, engineering, and international relations helped the College receive 3,400 first-year applications this year, 1,000 more than in 2007, the year the Campaign began.
Moreover, in support of the outstanding faculty who teach Lake Forest students and ensure academic excellence, generous Campaign donors have given six new endowed academic chairs and professorships along with 14 new endowed scholarships and 77 new annual scholarships.
“The research fund associated with my endowed chair has been very helpful, providing me with access to conferences, data, and equipment that have been crucial to some recent publications, as well as a continuing research project involving a student who intends to go on to graduate school in economics,” explained Jeff Sundberg, the James S. Kemper Foundation Chair in Liberal Arts and Business. “These projects have helped me develop a new course on the economics of land use, which has quickly become popular with students.”
And the campus has been transformed. The Mohr Student Center and Stuart Commons, built at the beginning of the Campaign, gives students a spacious, beautiful place of their own to attend leadership seminars and meetings, hold special events, or just hang out and play pool or foosball on a Saturday night.
At the restored Buchanan Hall on South Campus, students can now receive medical treatment at the well-appointed Health and Wellness Center, attend an alumni mentoring session in the Career Advancement Center, attend classes in education, religion or theater, or visit professors during office hours. And the Sports and Recreation Center, with its suspended running track, weight room, cardio fitness equipment, golf and batting cage, training rooms and other amenities, has added a new dimension to student life.
“The Campaign was designed to make our students’ academic and co-curricular lives as productive and satisfying as possible, and I think we’ve achieved that,” said President Schutt.
Forging ahead despite an economic recession
In 2008, only a year after the Campaign’s public launch, a major economic recession hit the United States, and it quickly became clear that the College would have to make major adjustments. Tuition payments – which cover nearly two-thirds of the College’s operating budget – fell sharply as students’ families experienced job losses and other privations. The College responded by freezing salaries and not filling vacant positions, cutting budgets for equipment, supplies, travel, and other discretionary items, and temporarily cancelling a few classes with very low enrollments, while protecting all essential academic offerings.
At the same time, the College greatly increased financial aid – by more than $4 million from 2008 to 2011 – for an unprecedented number of students who could not have remained enrolled without it. Recognizing the need for this aid, many Campaign donors made special gifts designated for annual and endowed student scholarships.
“In many cases,” President Schutt made clear, “these generous gifts allowed students to stay at Lake Forest and finish their education.”
Looking to the future
In 2010, the Board of Trustees approved a plan to increase the student body to 1,700 by the 2015-16 academic year. Inspired by the Campaign’s success, this growth will bring a number of educational, social, and financial benefits. It can help expand and enhance certain academic programs that are currently under-sized; provide more robust opportunities for student events, activities, clubs and social life on campus; and infuse additional tuition dollars into the College’s operating budget. As part of the enrollment-growth plan, the College intends to build a new residence hall on South Campus, with construction anticipated to begin in summer 2012.
Also supporting the enrollment growth are popular new off-campus study programs in Spain, New Zealand, and Chicago. Thirty-three students are already participating this fall in the “In the Loop” program, in which juniors and seniors live for a semester in downtown Chicago while completing career-building internships in a host of businesses, cultural insti- tutions, and professional firms across the city.
Enrollment is already steadily growing. Today the student body numbers 1,500, nearly 100 more than four years ago, when the Campaign began, and students hale from nearly every state and 78 other countries around the world.
“Thanks to the 150th Anniversary Campaign and everything it’s made possible,” said President Schutt, “Lake Forest College is well positioned to move smoothly through this growth period and reach new levels of strength and excellence. It’s a very exciting time to be at the College and invest in its future.”
The 150th Anniversary Campaign has laid a strong foundation for the College. “I believe the backbone of America is small liberal arts colleges like Lake Forest,” Robert Krebs concluded. “We need to educate and prepare our young people for meaningful and positive lives going forward, and with the Campaign invested in the way it’s been, I feel like we’ve set a good foundation for their future.”
