JBU Bolstering Efforts to Raise $125M by 2019

Siloam Springs-based John Brown University on Jan. 21 went public with a fundraising plan to raise $125 million.

Administration and staff members delivered a multimedia presentation on the plan — and how the money will be spent — to an audience full of students, faculty, donors and press at the Berry Performing Arts Center on the JBU campus. 

Dubbed “The Campaign for the Next Century: A Hope and Future,” the fundraising effort is intended to bring funding for student scholarships, facility renovations and construction, and for endowments, with a plan to also set aside extra money for the future.

It has been underway for about two years, and $58.3 million has been given or pledged so far.

The administration’s goal is to complete the fundraising effort by 2019, the year that marks the school’s centennial.

$35 million of the $125 million the school hopes to raise will go to student scholarships, according to a press release from the school. 

So far, an anonymous $1 million challenge grant for visual arts scholarships has been secured.

The scholarship endowment will be matched up to $1 million, and four-year scholarships will be given to qualified, selected art students, according to the school.

$30 million of the fund is intended to pay for the construction and renovation of campus facilities.

In this category, an anonymous $1.2 million gift has been pledged for the renovation of the Walton Lifetime Health Complex, and a preliminary commitment of $500,000 from the city of Siloam Springs will go toward the renovation as well.

Johanna Musgrave, JBU assistant director of communications, said the start date for the project has not been set, as the school is waiting to secure more funding for the renovation, which is estimated to cost between $4 million and $5.5 million.

“With growing usage and the age of the facility, significant renovation is needed to continue serving students and patrons well,” JBU athletic director Robyn Daugherty said in the press release.

More than 1,000 community members, 350 faculty and staff members, and more than 1,300 students regularly use the facility, according to the press release.

The renovation will update the public entrance of the 27-year-old building to make the fitness center, tennis courts and community trail more accessible.

It will also mean more parking, an expansion of the HVAC system, renovated locker rooms, expanded and improved fitness areas, and new decking and mechanical systems for the indoor pool, according to the school.

The pool is of particular interest, not just to students and faculty, but also the community, as it’s one of the only indoor pools in the area, Daugherty said.

 

Academic Endowments

A portion of the $125 million would also go toward the new $10 Million Endowment for Academic Excellence project, which will award endowed chairs in order to promote commitment to achievement and research within the faculty.

The school has already secured an anonymous $2 million gift to create the Charles Peer Endowed Chair in Visual Arts.

Peer, who started teaching art at JBU in 1987, is the first recipient of the chair. He helped found the Visual Arts Department in 1990, now the school’s largest program, with almost 250 students studying in eight different fields.

Peer mainly uses the medium of pastel crayons in his art, working with color in landscapes. He has received the President’s Award at the Northwest Pastel Society 28th Annual International Open Exhibit, several “Best in Show” awards at Ozark Pastel Society Competitions and the Best of the Show at the Richeson75 International Competition for Landscapes, Seascapes and Architecture. He has been the Summer Artist in Residence at the Buffalo River National Park and was selected to be included in “Best of America Pastel Artists, Volume 2” by Kennedy Publishing, according to the press release.

For art student Anthony Reiners, a freshman from Colorado, the announcement of the endowed chair was the highlight of the presentation.

“Everybody loves Mr. Peer,” he said. He added that the announced endowed visual arts scholarships also appealed to him.

 

Funding the Future

If JBU meets its goal, the visual arts scholarships are only the beginning.

The school looks to garner $25 million in estate gifts for future endowments, and also to raise another $25 million to set aside for future projects and operating support. 

One recent gift that fits in that category was announced by JBU in the presentation.

The Soderquist Family Foundation recently donated $300,000 for a Strategic Initiatives and Innovations Fund to support several new initiatives for the Donald G. Soderquist College of Business.

The gift will enable the development of new academic specialties — e.g., retail analytics and entrepreneurial studies — within the graduate and undergraduate programs of the college, in addition to supporting faculty research and development, according to the press release.

“The Soderquist College of Business has been eager to launch new innovations for the past few years,” Joe Walenciak, dean, said in the press release. “This great gift from the Soderquist Family Foundation will allow us to move forward on exciting innovations that will equip our students with the best business education in the state.”

 

Progress Made

Previously paid-for projects noted as part of the campaign include a $12 million building fund and endowment for a proposed nursing program.

Groundbreaking for the nursing program facility, which the school says will be state-of-the-art, will be in August.

Freshman pre-nursing student Beth Brankle of Siloam Springs is excited about the new facility.

In particular, she is looking forward to practicing on human patient simulation mannequins that are proposed to be a part of the supplies. “These mannequins can have heart attacks, show abnormal lung or heart functions, or give birth, and we will be able to practice care techniques and appropriate responses to specific medical scenarios to prepare for real-life situations,” Brankle said. “We will also have mannequins that will show normal and abnormal heart sounds, lung sounds, blood pressures and IVs inserted into them. I’m excited to work with these because they will help prepare us for taking care of real patients.”

Another project announced as part of the capital campaign is the construction of Simmons Great Hall, a $6 million, 600-person-capacity banquet facility that opened in 2013.

The $3 million Northslope Apartments, nontraditional student housing for 94 students, opened in 2013.

In 2014, a $5.5 million renovation of J. Alvin Brown Hall, a historic men’s residence hall, was completed.

Sophomore art student Jacob Hash, who grew up with his missionary parents in Poland, lived in the hall before and after the renovation was complete, and he said the change is enormous.

“It was really small before and it’s nice just to have space,” Hash said.

JBU announced a similar fundraising campaign called “Keeping Faith” in 2005, and president Chip Pollard said the school exceeded its $100 million goal by $18 million in the summer of 2012, and took about a year off before starting another campaign.

Pollard said, in spite of the success with the “Keeping Faith” campaign, the $125 million goal is ambitious.

“It’s a stretch,” he said, “but we’re willing to stretch more in order to support the kids here at JBU.”