A PROSPECTUSCAMPAIGN
This campaign will provide the resources needed for the Vassar community to support and expand on these values of inclusive and deep learning through focused investment in academic excellence, campus community and culture, and our work in the world beyond our campus. Only a community that honors freedom of expression, encourages different points of view, and recognizes our mutual interdependence can serve the objectives of a liberal arts education and the needs of the complex, pluralistic globe of which Vassar is a part. This commitment will be the foundation upon which we will build the best liberal arts education for our time – here at Vassar.
It is through the building of an intentional learning community where we question our own assumptions and where all are empowered to thrive, that we will deliver a transformative experience that equips students with the capacity to address the complex challenges of today and tomorrow. This is what we aspire to deliver.
From its founding, the College has boldly promulgated the power of a broad liberal arts education – the Vassar of today aspires to encourage the expression of different perspectives, and to allow for the exploration of contested ideas, pursuit of knowledge, and freedom of inquiry with informed, robust, and inclusive debate.
Power of the Liberal Arts
INVESTING IN FACULTY
Faculty Chairs
The College’s faculty are in equal measure accomplished classroom teachers and renowned scholars. It is paramount that Vassar continue to attract, recruit and retain the best faculty. Their research, which is at the core of their scholarship, requires funds for proper equipment, travel, professional conferences, technology, and paid student assistants. Potential areas of support include Faculty Research Committee funds, a Dean’s Discretionary Fund for Research and Travel, and a President’s Discretionary Fund for Faculty.
Recognizing one of Vassar’s most important resources – our tenured faculty – with named endowed chairs provides financial resources that enhance compensation while conferring recognition and providing additional research funds to the chair holder. A robust slate of endowed chairs helps us effectively recruit and retain the very best faculty. Among the areas that could benefit from such chairs are Urban Studies, Cognitive Science, Anthropology, Computer Science, and Africana Studies.
Faculty Scholarship and Research Funds
Multidisciplinary programs have been a hallmark of a Vassar education for decades, as the College has pioneered new and multilayered approaches to complex subjects through programs such as Environmental Studies and Media Studies. Bringing faculty from across the College together to address the issues of our time has never been more relevant. A Center for Multidisciplinary Study permanently housed in Baldwin Hall would provide a much-needed space for Vassar’s 17 collaborative and cross-disciplinary programs to convene in a central location on campus.
Center for Multidisciplinary Study
Center for Admission and Career Education
A highly competitive recruitment environment is now drawing nearly 20,000 visitors to campus annually, and we expect these numbers to grow. It is essential that we are able to welcome and accommodate prospective families appropriately. Our Career Education program has outgrown its current space and is in need of larger and more appropriately designed space for its work. In order to accommodate this reality, we will construct a state-of-the-art, green Center in North Campus along Collegeview Avenue, providing dedicated gathering space for large-group sessions and ample parking in a more accessible location close to the Arlington business district.
Strengthen Financial Aid
INVESTING IN STUDENTS
One of Vassar’s most deeply held values is reflected in its commitment to sustain the rich diversity of our student body – one of the most diverse liberal arts colleges of in the country. Significantly increasing endowment funds for financial aid to support and retain our students will address the considerable and rising cost of supporting a student body that is 20% Pell Grant-eligible (full-need) and 15% first-generation/low-income.
Programs for First-Gen and Low-Income Students
We have successfully piloted our Summer Immersions in the Liberal Arts and our four-year Transitions Program to provide our first-generation/low-income students with opportunities to hit the ground running at Vassar and become our next generation of campus leaders. In order to continue and expand these programs, and augment our emergency funds for extraordinary expenses, we seek to endow and support them through new gifts.
INVESTING IN CURRICULUM
Updating Classroom Technologies
The College has boldly rebalanced its curriculum to provide students and faculty more opportunity to delve deeply into important topics in a small-group environment, through classes that feature considerable independent work and incorporate innovative avenues of learning. Additional funds are vital to sustaining this and other curricular innovations. We also envision a new Learning, Teaching & Research Center in Thompson Library to allow faculty to learn from each other and hone their teaching skills.
To remain state-of-the-art, Vassar’s Libraries constantly need upgrades to the physical plant, technology, and services. Plans for the Libraries include a new ADA-accessible entrance, a café, greater public visibility for our extraordinary special collections, upgrades to our digital collections, and more efficient study and research spaces that better meet the needs of our students.
Nothing changes more rapidly or frequently than technology. Across campus, Vassar’s classrooms and public spaces are in continual need of upgrades to high-speed data transfer, video streaming capabilities, acoustical enhancements, and other tools for 21st century learning.
Enhancing the Libraries
Curriculum Innovation Fund
Campus Community and Culture
INVESTING IN CAMPUS HEALTH & WELLNESS
The Walker Field House has exceeded its useful life. With more than 22% of Vassar students playing on 27 intercollegiate athletic teams, 25% of our student body utilizing our fitness center, and a plethora of physical fitness courses, fitness classes, and intramurals, we are in need of a more modern and functional facility. We are in need of a 200-meter competition track to have a three-season track program, new indoor and outdoor tennis courts, an improved swimming pool, locker rooms, a sports medicine hub, and additional multipurpose space. One of the most energy-inefficient buildings on campus, a new field house would meet our Green Building Standards.
Our refocused campus health and wellness program aims to bring heightened awareness, new programs, additional human resources, and modern, integrated support facilities to Vassar for students, staff, and the entire College community. Of particular significance, Vassar plans to consolidate our existing mental health facilities with our overall health care services. Recognizing that mental health and wellness issues have reached a critical stage in the younger generation across the country, our faculty and administration are committed to this new approach.
Comprehensive and Integrated Approach to Health and Wellness
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A New Sports and Recreation Center
Sustaining Engaged Pluralism
Ensuring An Accessible Campus
Vassar’s system of House Fellows and House Advisors has played a key role in solidifying and strengthening our residential community. While we have made important investments recently in Residential Life, we now need to secure these advances for the future. Funding to help support our House Fellows/Advisors program, to make ongoing upgrades and improvements to the dorms and apartments, and to maintain and improve the residential and public student spaces in Main Building are all part of this initiative.
Over the past year, Vassar has been piloting a campus-wide Engaged Pluralism Initiative that helps students, faculty, administrators, and staff work across difference and diversity of opinion, learn how to solve problems together, and bring these skills out into the world. In our divisive and polarized times, these skills are essential to healing, collaborating, and leading. With our Mellon Foundation seed funding coming to an end in August 2023, we are committed to maintaining and expanding these programs.
INVESTING IN A VIBRANT RESIDENTIAL LIFE
Barriers to accessibility come in many forms: attitudinal, organizational or systemic, architectural or physical, informational or communicational, and technological. Vassar will invest in educational programs, consultation, and campus infrastructure improvements with a goal of eliminating all of these barriers.
Residential House System
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Dutchess County Post-Grad Fellows
Teacher Education and Our Work in the Local Schools
Career Planning and Mentoring Funds for additional resources, staffing, internships, travel, programming, and fellowships have helped sustain Vassar’s Career Development Office, which has developed award-winning programs with students and alumnae/i. To take this work to the next level will require additional endowments and expendable funds.
COMMUNITY
ENGAGING OUR LOCAL
Community Engaged Learning
The Dan Mindich ’87 Teacher Training Program and Urban Education Initiative places students interested in teaching careers into the Poughkeepsie Public Schools, to the mutual benefit of both Vassar and Poughkeepsie students. The Mindich family has offered a $1.25 million, one-to-one matching challenge to help keep the Urban Education Initiative running for the next eight to 10 years.
A new initiative to help keep Vassar students in the Mid-Hudson region after graduation, this fellowship program would help cover living expenses and augment salaries for students who choose to spend their first post-graduate year working and living in the area.
The Office of Community-Engaged Learning offers our students an experiential educational opportunity that combines work in a non-profit organization, a government agency, or a business with academic work. From health and legal services to media and cultural organizations, hundreds of Vassar students are bringing their skills and energy to the Mid-Hudson Valley through these programs. New funds are required to meet current demand, and to expand opportunities throughout the region.
Carbon Neutral by 2030
The Vassar Board of Trustees has approved a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. The blueprint calls for the conversion of our central heating plant to biofuels, a comprehensive review and renovation plan for building envelopes, and striving to remove fossil fuels from each new or fully renovated facility over the long term.
Institute for the Liberal Arts Vassar’s Institute for the Liberal Arts will provide a state-of-the-art center to highlight the power and relevance of the liberal arts in the 21st Century by addressing local, regional, and global issues, attracting thought leaders from around the world. A 50-bed Inn will offer modern accommodations to visitors to Vassar and the Mid-Hudson Valley.
International Programming Vassar is a global campus with a global reach. We have established a partnership with the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, have launched a liberal arts summer program in China, and are exploring engagement with partners in other parts of the world. We seek additional funds to sustain these programs, and to seed new ventures.
Endowment
The Vassar Fund provides over $10 million of unrestricted operating funds annually, the equivalent of a $200 million endowment. The Vassar Fund is an essential ingredient to our balanced budget, ensuring that the necessary funds are available to operate the full range of Vassar’s programs.
We invite the entire Vassar community alumni/ae, parents, and friends to participate in this strategic effort for Vassar’s future. While our goal is bold, every gift counts and makes a difference, and participation opportunities are ample.
The Vassar Fund
Gift planning through trusts and estates is a powerful means to leave a perpetual legacy to Vassar. These deferred gifts can be for unrestricted support to the College, for faculty support, student support, or a number of other areas of interest.
Legacy Gifts
A CAMPAIGN FOR ALL TO PARTICIPATE
Gifts to the endowment can be dedicated to specific programs to provide support in perpetuity. Gifts of unrestricted endowment can be used most flexibly, as they reduce the dependence on tuition to meet costs. These funds provide long-term support for all aspects of Vassar’s operating budget.
