April 24, 2020

 

Dear Sewanee Friends,

 

Greetings on this spring day in late April. We had been looking forward to welcoming many of you to campus this weekend to celebrate the accomplishments of the Stronger Truer Sewanee campaign. While the COVID-19 pandemic has interfered with these plans, I am seizing this opportunity to extend my deep appreciation for your generous support for this historic campaign, which has raised just under $290 million (16% above our original $250 million goal) to strengthen and firmly secure the University of the South's position as a leader in providing a liberal arts and seminary education of the highest caliber. A campaign of this size represents an historic achievement for all who participated. Thanks to you, there are more resources to sustain and enhance vital aspects of our mission, including these pillars of the campaign:

  • Support for Students: Ensuring Access, Value and Opportunity. To date, we have raised $68.9 million on our goal of $59.55 million, with $61 million for scholarships, $5.2 million for student internships, and $2.7 million for collaborative research opportunities. This success has allowed us to restore Sewanee's historic commitment to meeting 100 percent of our incoming students' demonstrated financial need. In addition, these resources help Sewanee graduates secure promising jobs and positions in top graduate programs by providing every student with funding for a summer internship or research fellowship.
  • Support for Academics: Reinforcing Distinction. On a goal of $50.6 million, we have gathered $53.9 million to support teaching and learning. These resources ensure Sewanee's ability to attract, retain, and support a superb and nimble faculty and have allowed us to develop innovative programs in business, pre-health, and civic engagement that help students address unscripted challenges and prepare themselves for lives of service and meaning.
  • Support for Campus: Enriching the Sewanee Experience. With $31.5 million in new resources on a goal of $34 million, we have enhanced the Sewanee community through upgraded athletic facilities (outdoor lighting, turf fields, a new baseball facility, and tennis center upgrades), new and renovated residence halls, a new learning commons in duPont Library and a magnificent new Sewanee Inn. The nearly completed Wellness Commons will bring resources to support students' mental and physical health to the center of campus in a state-of-the-art facility, and the new University Bookstore will anchor a continued revitalization of the Sewanee Village for the nourishment of students, community members, and visitors.
  • Support for the School of Theology: Educating Tomorrow's Church Leaders. Surpassing our $25 million goal, with $27.4 million raised to date, these resources help us prepare a new generation of church leaders through a superb seminary education and programs for laity.  Support for scholarships totals $4.7 million helping to ensure that all graduates begin their ministries with no debt related to their seminary education. New resources support programs for laity (Education for Ministry); for congregational development (Invite Welcome Connect), and for youth (SUMMA) -- all in a revitalized program center named the Beecken Center. Many also answered a call to improve the physical home of the School of Theology with upgraded facilities, and just under $11 million has been donated to that end.

A significant part of the campaign has been gifts through the Sewanee Fund for current operations and unrestricted support of the University. Gifts to current operations, unrestricted gifts, and gifts in kind account for nearly $108 million of the total. Many of you have pledged support for the Sewanee Fund through 2022, and we are immensely grateful as unrestricted support is especially critical when we find ourselves in circumstances as unexpected as those we face today. In addition, 224 individuals have supported the campaign with a planned or estate gift and have become members of the Charlotte Manigault Society. These gifts constitute 40% of the campaign total. Sewanee's future is brighter and more secure because so many of you have included Sewanee in your financial and estate planning.

 

While these words of thanks cannot match the joy we would have shared on the Mountain, seeing the facilities and meeting the students and faculty who are benefitting from your generosity, I hope you will accept, on behalf of all of us at Sewanee, my sincere and heartfelt thanks for your role in the Stronger Truer Sewanee campaign. I hope and expect that you will continue to be part of that "never-ending succession of benefactors" who will ensure Sewanee's bright future for many years to come.

 

Finally, to give you some sense of being home on the Domain, I invite you to click here for a brief tour of the new Wellness Commons and the new University Bookstore, both of which are in their final weeks of construction. We cannot wait until students are back on campus and realizing the benefits of these great new spaces! In the meantime, I hope you and your family are safe and well.

 

With gratitude and best wishes,

 

John M. McCardell, Jr.

Vice-Chancellor and President