For Immediate Release: January 22, 2007
Contact:  Alisa Giardinelli    
610-690-5717     
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/

Swarthmore Surpasses Campaign Goal of $230 Million

Swarthmore College completed the most successful and ambitious capital campaign in its 143-year history, raising $245,462,000 and surpassing the campaign's original $230 million goal by more than $15 million.  The campaign's enormous success is credited to the generosity and unprecedented support of alumni, students, parents, and friends.  A remarkable 87% of alumni contributed.

"We are all delighted at the outcome and thrilled that we've surpassed our goal," said Campaign Co-Chair Fred Kyle '54.  "The campaign was successful thanks to the hard work, dedicated effort, and generosity of many, many people.

"Everyone pitched in," Kyle continued. "We received gifts from alumni ranging as far back as the 1920s to last year's graduating Class of 2006. The outpouring of support from our alumni and the entire College community has been deeply gratifying."

President Alfred H. Bloom noted that "the College, a remarkable institution, is now even stronger. The success of the campaign is a magnificent collective accomplishment, which will allow Swarthmore to continue to live its distinctive vision and deliver its singular educational impact for many years to come."

Inaugurated in September 2001, The Meaning of Swarthmore campaign targeted academic and student life priorities essential to preserving and extending the quality of a Swarthmore education into the 21st Century and beyond.  Among its most significant accomplishments, the campaign has:

• Funded 10 new tenure-track and several non-tenure-track faculty positions and created five new second  semester faculty leaves;
  
  
• Helped put in place new curricular initiatives in cognitive science, film and media studies, and Islamic studies;
  
  
• Created 170 new scholarships and reinforced the College's commitment to need-blind admissions and financial aid;
  
  
• Supported each varsity sport with a full-time coach and funded improved athletic facilities;
  
  
• Underwritten the cost of a revised Honors Program;
  
  
• Built a state-of-the-art science center and a new student residence, Alice Paul 1905 Hall;
  
  
• Restored the College's original building, Parrish Hall, the figurative and literal "heart" of the campus;
  
  
• Established the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, Swarthmore's central link between rigorous academic training and the development of leadership skills required to shape a more just, democratic, peaceful, and inclusive world;
  
  
• Created the position of associate dean for multicultural affairs;
  
  
• Built endowment for religious advisors;
  
  
• Expanded the scope and impact of Career Services; and
  
  
• Opened additional personal development opportunities for College staff.

"This campaign is significant, in part, because it expanded the College's capacity to fund its programs and meet its needs for the future," said Dan West, Vice President for Alumni, Development, and Public Relations. "Our entire development effort has been stepped up to a new level of effectiveness."