Fulfilling the Dream
Campaign brought a successful transformation “Our challenge is to dream as big as our founders did and to develop a college that continues to be worthy of the aspirations our students and their families have for themselves, our region and the Commonwealth,” Chancellor David J. Prior said on Oct. 26, 2006 before 200 of UVaWise’s most loyal alumni and supporters as they officially began the “Fulfilling the Dream” campaign. Five years later, Chancellor Prior stood before a crowd of familiar faces and new friends to celebrate the successful conclusion of the $50 million campaign that exceeded expectations by raising $62 million. “The campaign has been a true gamechanger for UVa-Wise,” the chancellor told those gathered in the Convocation Center for the Campaign Celebration on Oct. 29, 2011. “Your loyalty to the college and the strength of your commitment are helping us realize the vast potential of this institution and the people and region it serves.”
Two dynamic reasons the ambitious campaign was successful were co-chairs Marcia Adams Gilliam ’82 and Hunter J. Smith. “There has been no better friend to this college and to Southwest Virginia than Hunter J. Smith,” Prior said. “She is a cando person who is a stalwart in her support of this college and dedication in her efforts to enlist others to support our mission.” Smith and her late husband, Carl Smith, provided funds for Carl Smith Stadium, athletic scholarships, an endowment for the Marching Highland Cavaliers, Smith Dining Commons and the renovation of the Lila Vicars Smith House, just to name a few. “Marcia Adams Gilliam is a person of great heart, wisdom and resolve,” Prior said. “Her unfaltering leadership as campaign co-chair has resulted in the phenomenal success of the ‘Fulfilling the Dream’ Campaign.” It was fitting that the co-chairs received the Volunteers of the Year award as the crowd applauded their hard work and dedication. Five years ago, Mrs. Smith predicted that the campaign would “touch every phase of college life and truly make a difference in the lives” of its students. She Volunteers of the Year, Hunter J. Smith and Marcia Adams Gilliam with Chancellor David J. Prior
14 UVa-Wise Magazine
Benefactors of the Year, Leslie and Richard Gilliam
announced on Oct. 29, 2011 that 8,600 donors who participated in the campaign have made “a positive difference in the lives of ” UVa-Wise students. “The ‘Fulfilling the Dream’ campaign broke new ground in so many ways,” she said. “Ninety-three new scholarship funds have been established as well as five endowed professorships. Twenty-one new funds for academic enhancements and 14 new funds for athletics are now in place. In addition, some of the largest gifts to the campaign came through bequests.” Five years ago at the campaign kickoff, Marcia Adams Gilliam said she believed the college’s founding fathers could not have envisioned the economic impact of the school on the region, but she said others now “recognize the impact of our college and can only dream of the future impact it will have.” She used the word impact again as she spoke at the campaign celebration saying the impact of the campaign brought positive,