Illumination Spring 2012

Spring 2012 • The PEOPLE Issue

www.portsmouthabbey.org/campaign

Growing in Knowledge & Grace the campaign for portsmouth abbey school

WELCOME MESSAGE

Endowing the Future of Portsmouth Abbey School The Power of Scholarship Dollars

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to this first edition of ILLUMINATION, the newsletter highlighting the progress of Growing in Knowledge & Grace: The Campaign for Portsmouth Abbey School.

Since the Board of Regents ratified the School’s strategic plan in September 2003, the Board, administration and dedicated volunteers have steadily moved forward in addressing its goals for the benefit of Portsmouth’s people, plant and programs.

This issue of ILLUMINATION shines a light on the Campaign’s impact on people. While our goals may fall under the headings of People, Plant and Program, it could certainly be argued that every dollar raised improves the experience of our students, faculty and monastic community. For instance, while the new boys’ and girls’ residence halls, St. Martin’s House and St. Brigid’s House, address the needs of our physical plant, the ultimate beneficiaries of these beautiful new spaces are the students and faculty who call them home. continued on page 2

Portsmouth Abbey School’s mission to foster reverence, respect and responsibility and to help young men and women grow in knowledge and grace is a 100 percent student-centric ideal. At its essence, Portsmouth exists for the boys and girls who choose our School for its challenging education grounded in the Catholic Benedictine faith. While many applicants may have the aspirations, talents and skills to thrive at Portsmouth, the reality is that few families have the financial capability to afford four years of private secondary school education.

Portsmouth’s strategic plan reaffirms our School’s commitment to financial accessibility for qualified students of all backgrounds. In response, Growing in Knowledge & Grace: The Campaign for Portsmouth Abbey School aims to grow financial support for both meritand need-based scholarships. This goal becomes particularly critical as Portsmouth continues to increase its boarding population; boarding tuition, currently $48,850, presents a considerable financial hurdle for many families.

You may be wondering,“Merit- and needbased scholarships, what’s the difference?”

At Portsmouth, merit-based scholarships and need-based grants (a component of financial aid) perform two different and important roles with a common goal: to make Portsmouth Abbey School affordable to all deserving students.

Merit-based scholarships present an exciting opportunity for Portsmouth to set the bar of academic excellence high. Since 1990, the School has offered the Reverend Hugh Diman Scholarship. This honor, awarded to one entering Third Form student each year, has always been underwritten by the financial aid budget — a $200,000 financial obligation that, if fulfilled through the endowment, would allow the School to distribute more financial aid to deserving students. In response to the need for endowed merit scholarships, the newly established Alumni Merit Scholarship Fund is Portsmouth’s first of its kind.

Created by a generous donor in 2012, the new Fund is designed to support one student during his or her tenure at Portsmouth.

Reflecting on his merit scholarship experience, Diman Scholar John Anselmi ’95 admits he was not fully aware of the prestige of the four-year boarding scholarship during the admission process. “Only when I arrived on campus in the fall of 1991 did I fully grasp what it meant to be a Diman Scholar.”

Eero Pikat ’94 remembers the scholarship being the deciding factor for his family. A believer in the benefits of increasing the availability of merit scholarships, he notes, “The mere presence of the scholarship causes good students to have a closer look at the School, and increases the general level of the applicant pool.”

Merit-based scholarship recipients possess diverse continued on back cover

Welcome Message continued Growing Portsmouth’s ability to welcome deserving students who are drawn to our unique Catholic Benedictine tradition is a key initiative of the strategic plan. To do so, the Campaign is actively seeking funding for both merit-based scholarships and needbased financial aid. Merit- and need-based funding allow the School to embrace diversity of all kinds, including talent, geography and socioeconomic background. Our feature stories provide powerful illustrations of how scholarships and financial aid affect our pursuit of academic excellence and recruitment of a vibrant student community.

Finally, with spring feeling ever more like summer, we encourage every reader to remember the 2011-2012 Annual Fund before it closes on June 30. The Annual Fund at Portsmouth is the way many alumni, Photo: Kate Whitney Lucey

parents and friends have already participated in Growing in Knowledge & Grace: The Campaign for Portsmouth Abbey School.

Thank you to those who have already given.

If it is still on your to-do list, please consider a gift today.

We hope you enjoy reading about the many Campaign accomplishments and initiatives underway. Growing in Knowledge & Grace has a giving opportunity for every member of

our

community, and

we

hope

to

Commemorating Outstanding Teaching The Kearney Chair in English

demonstrate this point with this publication (as

well

as

with

our

new

website:

www.por tsmouthabbey.org/campaign).

There are still buildings to finance, faculty chairs and scholarships to fund, and an endowment to strengthen.

We invite you to join us on the journey.

James DeVecchi Headmaster

Charles E. Kenahan ’77 P’12, ’12, ’12 Campaign Chair

To discuss any aspect of the campaign-specific items in this issue, please contact: Patrick J. Burke ’86, P’15 Assistant Headmaster for Development 404.643.1291 pburke@portsmouthabbey.org

The Kearney Chair in English honors Dom Damian Kearney ’45, Portsmouth’s resident archivist. Dom Damian entered the monastery in 1949 and taught English until 2005, serving as department chair for 25 of those years. The endowed faculty chair will celebrate Dom Damian’s lifelong service as a teacher, colleague, housemaster and historian. For over six decades Dom Damian has shared his gifts with us — the time is now for us to share ours in return.

Portsmouth is very close to reaching full funding for the Kearney Chair in English. We plan to announce establishment of the chair and the first Kearney Chair recipient at Graduation 2012. If you are moved to honor Dom Damian in this special way, please contact Patrick J. Burke, Assistant Headmaster for Development.

THE CASE FOR FACULTY CHAIRS:

Portsmouth Abbey School’s lay and monastic faculty give their time and talent every day — at all hours of the day — to help the young men and women in their care to grow in knowledge and grace. The Campaign for Portsmouth Abbey School aims to support Portsmouth’s faculty by endowing five faculty chairs. As permanent components of the School’s endowment, annual income from the chairs will provide for the distinguished chairholders’ salary and benefits packages, professional development activities, and curricular innovations. The cost to endow each chair is $1 million. Over the next 12 months, Portsmouth will endeavor to complete funding for two new faculty chairs. We will continue to share information on the Campaign website and in future issues of ILLUMINATION as honorees are selected.

An Unexpected Gift Sometimes the most transformational gifts can also be the most unexpected. Not long ago Growing in Knowledge & Grace: The Campaign for Portsmouth Abbey School was the beneficiary of one such blessing.

In 2007, Portsmouth received a phone call from an attorney in New York relaying the news that Madeleine Drexel Dahlgren Townsend had named the School in her estate plans. Bequests of this nature are not unusual. However, this particular gift presented a mystery — Ms. Townsend and her bequest were both unknown to Portsmouth Abbey School.

After much detective work, it was discovered that Ms. Townsend was a longtime summer resident of Newport. Yearly she would pack up her station wagon in New York City and settle for the season at her home on Ocean Drive known as “Salt Marsh.” Part of her stay included routine worship at the Abbey Church, where she got to know the work and mission of Portsmouth’s lay and monastic community. With no children of her own to introduce to the School or involve her further, it was nearly 50 years after she established her provision that the School learned of her admiration.

In the end, her gift totaled a stunning $730,000 in support of scholarships and financial aid.

Ms. Townsend’s generosity beautifully reflects Portsmouth’s ability to touch the lives of those who travel its paths. Her goodwill stands as a testament of faith in the promise of Portsmouth Abbey School and its students. Her gift — as is the case for all gifts to the Campaign — provides a compelling illustration of the School’s mission to foster responsibility for the shared experience of community life. One might even call it a philanthropic miracle.

Campus Conversation

Admissions on Endowing for Our Students Scholarships and financial aid are two of the most powerful tools employed by the Office of Admission in their quest to recruit the best and brightest students to Portsmouth Abbey School. We shared a few moments with Director of Admission Meghan Fonts to talk about the tangible benefits of merit- and need-based student funding.

Q: Spring is such a busy time for your office — what has this year’s admission season been like?

A: We’re happy to report that applications were up this year from a strong pool of candidates. We received a record 381 applications by our January 31 deadline, and we sent out our decisions on March 10. As of today we are preparing to welcome over 100 new students come fall.

Q: Are you hearing positive buzz from incoming students and families?

A: Oh yes, many positive responses, however parents are looking at the boarding tuition of $48,850 and day tuition of $33,025 and questioning, “Can we do this?” It’s a big investment. Scholarships and financial aid are often deciding factors.

Photos: Jez Coulson

Q: A focus of the Campaign is to raise endowment support for students. This includes both merit-based scholarships and need-based financial aid. Can you tell us how

this combination of financial awards affects enrollment at Portsmouth?

A: Our applicant pool is stronger and larger than ever, but the composite of that group continues to need high levels of financial aid. Currently need-based financial assistance, complemented by the merit-based Diman Scholarship, greatly assist in enrolling and retaining our strongest candidates.

Q: Is Portsmouth currently able to meet the financial need demonstrated by all families applying to the School?

A: At the current time we are not. We continue to see an increase in students who can be admitted whom we cannot fully fund. Last year, there were about 10 students who were going to need a combined $400,000 in aid, and we just could not meet the need.

Q: Can you think of specific students whose lives were positively impacted by the School’s ability to offer financial assistance?

A: Absolutely. One girl in particular, a former Diman finalist, enrolled with the help of financial assistance. Today she is excelling at an Ivy League school. Our financial aid recipients realize that Portsmouth has provided an unbelievable opportunity — a true gift — and they treat it with maturity, grace and gratitude.

Q: What can you tell us about the process of selecting Diman Scholars?

A: For the past 20 years the Diman

Scholarship has helped us attract high achieving students from a national applicant pool. It is based purely on merit; there is no financial qualification used to determine who is ultimately selected.

Awarded to one Third Form boarding student per year, the Diman Scholarship provides full tuition for all four years.

Restricted Dollars Within the Endowment ■ ■ ■

Total Value of Endowment Restricted Faculty Funds within the Endowment Endowed Scholarship Funds within the Endowment

$45M $40M

$39.9M

$35M $30M

$36.9M

$38.3M $36.2M $33.3M

$32.9M $29.6M

$25M $3.3M

$20M $15M $10M

$2.6M

$15.6M

$5M Q: What is the status of merit-based scholarships? $0 2005 A: At present, the Diman Scholarship is funded through our financial aid budget. In addition, we are pleased to have just received our first endowed merit-based scholarship fund, the Alumni Merit Scholarship Fund, currently designed to support one student during his or her tenure at Portsmouth. The Campaign’s goal to raise $5 million for merit-based scholarships will endow the Diman Scholarship Fund and allow for the creation of additional named funds.

Q: The Campaign aims to grow the endowment for need-based financial assistance as well. What can you tell us about the financial aid process and the resources available?

A: If an admitted student qualifies for financial assistance then he or she will be considered for a grant from the School.

$2.8M

$3.2M

$4.1M $2.7M

$17.1M

2006

$20M

2007

$17.2M

$18.2M

2008

$3.1M

$14.1M

$15.1M

2009

2010

2011

There are a number of named scholarship funds within the endowment that are designated for need-based support. These named scholarships, combined with our financial aid budget, provide grants to approximately 128 students each year.

Q: Are there other facets of the Campaign influencing enrollment?

A: Yes. Construction of St. Brigid’s and St. Martin’s dormitories certainly help us to sustain enrollment. However, our client base expects growth. We have to stay on top, and the Campaign’s steady pace of building facilities and programs continues to address this need.

continued from front page

talents and high intellectual capabilities.

As Diman Scholar Brendan O’Higgins ’93 describes, “merit-based scholarships elevate the level of academics at Portsmouth … and enrich the academic experience for everyone.” Diman Scholarship recipients’ success stories are many; post Portsmouth they have gone on to Ivy League schools and to pursue successful careers. Endowing the Diman Scholarship for perpetuity and adding more merit-based scholarship opportunities like the Alumni Merit Scholarship are critical goals of the Campaign. Both create exciting opportunities for alumni, parents and friends to get involved in the recruitment of some of Portsmouth’s most promising students.

Equally as important as merit scholarship funding, the availability of need-based financial aid preserves Portsmouth’s tradition of welcoming qualified students of varied talents and backgrounds. The School community has a strong philanthropic history of giving to the endowment in honor and in memory of treasured classmates, family members, and lay and monastic faculty. Named scholarship funds within the School’s endowment support artists and athletes, day students and boarders, musicians and mathematicians — and, most importantly, students who might not otherwise be able to afford the opportunity.

Students receiving financial assistance recognize the great opportunity they have been given, and their collective gratitude is palpable. “The Abbey has given me incredible opportunities that I cannot get elsewhere, as well as a warm, friendly community of people who are always ready to help each other,” one student acknowledges. “The Abbey gives me opportunities on a daily basis to excel and grow as a person,” another writes. “I am very grateful and I want to say thank you truly from the bottom of my heart,” an appreciative student shares with her named scholarship benefactors. “My whole life has changed because you believed in me and gave me a chance.”

The power of scholarship dollars is clear: endowing for our students enables Portsmouth to continue to build a community of talented boys and girls eager to grow in knowledge and grace. To achieve this, The Campaign for Portsmouth

Abbey School strives to raise $9 million in additional endowed merit- and need-based scholarships.

20 YEARS OF THE DIMAN SCHOLARSHIP Since 1990, Portsmouth Abbey School has enrolled students of the highest caliber as Diman Scholars. Each year one exceptional Third Form student receives this full, four-year boarding scholarship. Diman Scholars contribute greatly to the intellectual climate on campus, and as alumni are making extraordinary marks as researchers, activists and entrepreneurs.

The Diman Scholarship elicits substantial gratitude from its recipients. Sixth Former Darren Colbourne calls the scholarship, “the greatest honor I have ever received,” and pledges in return to, “strive to exceed even what I thought I was capable of before.” Darren, along with his Diman Scholar peers and alumni, approaches his Portsmouth experience with an understanding of responsibility. “With this honor comes a real sense of pride, and I will continue to do my best to contribute to this school and community that is giving so much to me,” he explains.

Fourth Former Eden Franz similarly values her Diman Scholar experience.

“The Diman Scholarship has presented me the opportunity to attend Portsmouth Abbey, a school that is unique in the warmth of its community, the beauty of its campus, and the spirit of service embodied in its traditions. I look forward to the challenges ahead and know that my experiences at the Abbey will help me to become a better student, athlete and artist, as well as a wiser and more confident individual,” she muses.

Currently funding for the Diman Scholarship program (approximately $200,000 per year) is underwritten by the School’s operating budget. The Campaign aims to begin the process of building a permanent foundation of endowed funds that will finance the yearly enrollment of Diman Scholars as well as other outstanding applicants.

Giving the Gift of Education One Family’s Story

Cathy and John Speer’s relationship with Portsmouth Abbey School began over four decades ago when their oldest son, Paul, entered the Third Form as a day student. No sooner had Paul graduated than their youngest son, Eric, matriculated. By the end of the 1970’s, John and Cathy had transitioned from involved parents to proud parents of alumni: Paul in the Class of 1974 and Eric in the Class of 1978. Yet, over the years, the Speer family stayed in touch, and continued to support the School through the Annual Fund.

In September 2005, Cathy and John felt it was time to take their family’s support of Portsmouth to the next level. Hearing the ambitious goals of Growing in Knowledge & Grace: The Campaign for Portsmouth Abbey School, one initiative in particular struck a chord: student scholarships. Inspired by their firsthand experience as parents of boys who flourished within the framework of the School’s mission and Catholic Benedictine curriculum, they created a need-based scholarship to support one middle-income student from Aquidneck Island. The Speer Family Scholarship was born.

Today giving to the Scholarship is a family affair. In addition to their yearly support of the Annual Fund, Cathy, John, Paul and Eric all enjoy the ability to add to their family’s special Fund.

Growing in Knowledge & Grace the campaign for portsmouth abbey school

Scholarship Funds Created During The Campaign 2004 – 2005 ■ The Class of 1982 Scholarship Fund 2005 – 2006 ■ The William Barry McCoy ’67 Memorial Scholarship Fund ■ The Michael H. Schuhmacher ’82 Memorial Scholarship Fund ■ The Speer Family Scholarship Fund 2006 – 2007 ■ The Cecil J. Acheson Memorial Scholarship Fund ■ The Daniel R. Childs ’53 Memorial Scholarship Fund ■ The John L. McCauley Scholarship Fund ■ The Rhode Island Scholarship Fund 2007 – 2008 ■ The Class of 1968 Scholarship Fund ■ The Gladney Family Scholarship Fund ■ The Anne Kielty Memorial Scholarship Fund ■ The Angelo J. Spizzirri ’94 Memorial Scholarship Fund ■ The Tobin Family Memorial Scholarship Fund 2008 – 2009 ■ The Abbate Family Scholarship Fund 2009 – 2010 ■ The Class of 1959 Memorial Scholarship Fund 2010 – 2011 ■ The Richard C. and Romana C. Carr Scholarship Fund ■ The Class of 1985 Scholarship Fund ■ The Marco A. DiMare Memorial Scholarship Fund

SPOTLIGHT on the Annual Fund What single Campaign initiative boasts the largest number of donors? At 3,488 alumni, parent and friend supporters (and growing steadily every day), the clear winner is the Annual Fund!

Provider of eight percent of the operating budget, the Annual Fund — combined with tuition and a 4.5 percent draw of endowment interest — ensures that Portsmouth’s people, programs and plant are able to grow in knowledge and in grace. In fact, the vast majority of Annual Fund dollars go directly to Portsmouth’s people. It is fair to say that the daily experiences of every girl, boy, lay teacher, and monk are influenced by the Annual Fund.

While the Board of Regents continues to pay close

attention to the School’s budget, the cost of a Portsmouth education has always surpassed what the School requests in tuition. This is not just a Portsmouth practice — all independent schools rely on annual philanthropic support to keep tuition as low as possible for families.

This translates to a $10,000 hidden scholarship that helps every student enjoy all that Portsmouth has to offer.

We are sometimes asked, “Why have an Annual Fund?

Why doesn’t the School use endowment interest to offset operating expenses?” The answer is simple and stunning.

Portsmouth would need $27 million more in endowment to generate enough interest to match the $1,225,000 the Annual Fund currently provides — powerful proof of the value of annual giving.

As Portsmouth Abbey School looks to the future, growing the Annual Fund to provide 10 percent of the operating budget is a critical goal. Reducing the School’s reliance on tuition and endowment will elevate Portsmouth to a new position of financial stability, and enable us to continue to strive for academic excellence.

The 2012 Annual Fund closes on June 30. To date, 1,247 alumni, parents and friends have answered the call to action and given $967,222. Please accept our heartfelt thanks if you have already given! If you have not yet put your pen to paper (or clicked your way to our secure online giving page at www.portsmouthabbey.org), please consider doing so today. Every gift brings us closer to our goal!