Dreams. Discovery. Direction.

By Deborah Lilly

Since 1917, Anderson University has been a place for students with big dreams. Over the course of four years, they find ways to channels those dreams as they discover the right direction for their lifelong journey. As an institution, AU has partnered with these students by providing them a quality Christian liberal arts education that will make them major competitors on the job front while also encouraging their faith and building their desire to serve the church and society. So while the students dream big, so does the university.

On Oct. 5, AU publicly kicked off its biggest challenge to date: to raise $110 million by May 31, 2010. These funds will not only build scholarship aid to students but also provide for some very impressive building projects, such as a new student center and a communication and performing arts center.

According to James L. Edwards, president of the university, now is the right time to start a capital campaign. “The needs and the opportunities have simply come together,” he explains. “We have been building a platform for this and now we are at a point where it really comes together. It’s time to take the next logical step in our development as an institution.”

For the past three years, the staff on the university’s advancement team has undertaken the silent phase of the capital campaign. “We began by conducting a feasibility study,” explains Robert Coffman, vice president for advancement. “Along the way, people became very intrigued. Certain aspects of the campaign resonated with them, and they wanted to support it early.”

As a result, the university has already surpassed 50 percent of its goal. “It creates a real sense of energy as we move into the public phase of the campaign. People can see that there is significant support for the university and that this goal of $110 million is within the realm of possibility,” says Coffman. This is the third capital campaign for both Edwards and Coffman at AU. “This campaign has taken on a whole different character,” Edwards says. “It has taken a lot of people with a lot of commitment, but we have people in our lives today who can help us year after year after year and the cumulative effect of the dedication to our mission has been enormous.”

This capital campaign, called “Dreams, Discovery, Direction,” will touch all students on campus, whether its through increased scholarship support, funds to bring in additional faculty at the top of their fields, or new facilities on campus. The campaign goal breaks down as follows:

Captial Projects: $51 Million

(In millions of dollars)

Center for Communication and Performing Arts $16

New Student Center 15

Recital Hall 2

Seminary Housing 3

Residence Hall Improvements 5

Other Campus Improvements 10

Endowment: $34 Million

Student Financial Aid $12

Endowed Chairs and Faculty Support 5

Special Endowed Programs 5

Unrestricted Endowment 12

Gifts for Current Use: $25 Million

Operational Support $25

TOTAL: $110 Million

An important part of this campaign is building the endowment. “We are always challenged with the need to meet today’s demands while also planning for a future we can hardly envision,” explains Edwards. “Large endowments come about with investments and time, but those seeds have to be planted. This campaign will give us a chance to plant some of those seeds.”

Institutions with strong endowments are able to plan confidently for the future, weather the storms of year-to-year ups and downs, and maintain a strong competitive position to meet the needs of students and attract top faculty and staff. Right now, more than 90 percent of students at AU receive financial aid. “As higher education costs continue to rise, the lack of major endowment support puts added pressure on the annual budget as a source of student financial aid and affects our competitiveness,” says Coffman. “The size of a financial aid package often is the determining factor in a student’s enrollment decision.”

A new University Center

Prospective students are also influenced by campus facilities. Perhaps the most anticipated facility project on campus is the new University Center.

“A student center is place for community to happen on campus,” explains Brent Baker, vice president of student life and dean of students. “Students like to hang out together.” But the university has outgrown Olt Student Center. “A new student center will foster greater opportunity for relationships.”

“This building was built in the 1960s when the student population was about half the size it is today,” says Will Holgate, director of food services, from his office in the Olt Student Center. Today there simply isn’t enough space: not enough space for students to sit down and eat, not enough space to store food and equipment, and not enough meeting rooms.

“Deliveries are coming three, four, five times a day,” says Holgate. “We have everything stocked just as full as we can get it. If it comes on Friday, by Sunday afternoon, we’re out. We have one person who does nothing all day long but put away food.”

A university’s dining facilities are of utmost importance to students living on campus, but it also contributes to the institution’s ability to attract groups from across the country for conferences.

According to Sena Landey, vice president for finance and treasurer, the campus is heavily booked with church groups, youth sports camps, and marching bands during the summer. But during the school year, it’s a different story. “There’s no facility on campus for conference activity Monday through Friday,” she explains. Students are using the main dining area for breakfast, lunch, and supper. None of the other dining rooms seat more than 100 people. Parking is also an issue during the day. And with the hallway leading to dining areas also shared with the loading dock, “the facility itself is not attractive to outside conferences.”

Why are these conferences so important to the university? First, they bring additional revenue to campus. But more importantly, they attract prospective students, their parents, and even their grandparents.

The new University Center will take care of these facility issues plus have additional space to bring together all of the services a student center should have, adding space for the mail center, a mini computer lab for students to check e-mail, and all of the Department of Student Life offices, including career services, the counseling center, and the health clinic. The new University Center will also include larger and more visible space for the university’s bookstore.

The new facility will also include a lounge for commuter students. “We have a hard time keeping commuter students connected to campus,” says Baker. A commuter lounge will give them a home on campus. It could include a mini kitchen, lockers, comfortable furniture, and a television room. “It will build a community of folks who identify with each other because they’ve never had the on-campus life to get hooked into.”

A center for communication and performing arts

Dr. Don Boggs, chair of the communication department, has a philosophy for his department: Created in the image of God, we are all creators ourselves. In the communication department, which is home to the speech, theatre, journalism, public relations, broadcast journalism, and broadcasting programs, the art is storytelling, whether it’s viewed, heard, or read.

The communication program began on the AU campus in 1977. Since the beginning, the department has been physically separated. Today they are located in Byrum Hall, Decker Hall, Hardacre Hall, and the Broadcasting Center on Walnut Street. “I’m chair of the department and the rest of my faculty are in Decker and Byrum,” says Boggs. “Think about a communication department trying to communicate well with faculty and students and supporting offices spread across campus — that is a real challenge.”

The communication department is also challenged by lack of space. “If I were to take you through the Broadcasting Center or Byrum Hall, you would see that every nook and cranny is used,” explains Boggs. “In fact, we even have a freight container in back of this building to store set elements for the television studio.”

Lack of space means there are some things the department has to do without, such as classroom labs for audio editing, video editing, script writing, and news writing.

Despite the facilities, the communication department at AU continues to be a premiere program. Alumni working in the field of theatre speak highly of their experience with Ronn Johnstone. The school newspaper and yearbook have won a list of awards over the years. Journalism faculty not only teach but are also published in highly respected publications. And students in all majors are getting internships in top companies across the country.

But a new center for communication and performing arts will allow for the collaboration of students and faculty from different programs, for example, one single energized newsroom for the student newspaper, yearbook, and radio news. A new theatre built with camera positions in mind and cable hook-ups right in the floor will make it possible to create video and audio recordings of plays and musicals.

In addition to a traditional theatre, the university also hopes to include a black box theatre in the new center for communication and performing arts. A black box theatre is a small, flexible theatre that would be an ideal space for student-led productions and for the development of new and emerging ideas in theatre.

A place to showcase musical talent

A new recital hall has made the list of capital projects for this campaign. Currently, student, faculty, and guest recitals are held in large classrooms designed as rehearsal spaces for larger groups and not for solo or chamber recitals. “Those rooms are in constant use as rehearsal spaces, and then we have to convert them over to recital space in the evening,” says Dr. Jeffrey Wright, dean of the College of the Arts. “And they will always look like classrooms, with chalkboards, large percussion instruments that can’t be put anywhere else, racks of music stands, all manner of things that we use all day long and have no place to hide when it’s time for a performance.”

A new recital hall would seat 150 to 200 people. “This would be a space that would have a lot of height to allow the sound to float and linger in the space,” says Wright. It would include storage space to hide away equipment and a green room where performers can wait away from the incoming audience. “It’s also important to have a recording facility that adjoins the recital hall with all of the stationary equipment in place so we don’t have to move it in and out as we do now.”

According to Wright, from the standpoint of attracting prospective students, “It’s been a detriment that we don’t have a recital hall. It’s a small space but it speaks very loudly.” A dedicated space for recitals lets students know that their work is taken seriously, that when they reach the final stage of their musical progress at AU, they will be able to stand on stage and show everyone how they have developed. “It elevates the importance of performance to a whole new level simply because we’re saying to them we’re not going to put you in a classroom to give your final performance.”

A place for students to dream

The bottom line is that every campaign is about students and enhancing their experience on the AU campus. “Students make profound choices during this particular part of their life,” explains Edwards. “This campaign is about their dreams, finding their direction, and making their discoveries. In terms of the process of discovery and finding direction, the four or five years that a student spends on a campus like Anderson will be a defining experience. It’s a time of life when they’re trying to get it all sorted out.”

The “Dreams, Direction, Discovery” campaign will have a huge impact on students’ experiences at AU, but as important as it is for the current student body, it will also influence the lives of alumni.

“Every piece of the success of this campaign adds value to the degree our alums hold,” says Edwards. “What we do for alumni by being successful in this campaign is to continue to bring distinction to the life experience that had some meaning for them at this university. They have a great stake in our success.”

When they give, alumni can be sure that wherever their gifts are put to use, they are being used to further the mission of the university to educate students for lives of faith and service in the church and society.

“We are providing some of the best ground for the good seeds to be planted,” says Edwards. “It’s been prepared for years, and people are continuing to plant seeds that are growing here in vibrant ways. Who knows what this place will look like five, ten years from now, but I know it will be different, and I know it will be better because of what I see going on today.”