Hamilton, NY — With personal gifts totaling $4 million, 67 current and former trustees of Colgate University have created a fund that will advance the college in honor of retiring President Neil R. Grabois.
The fund was announced Tuesday evening (March 9) by Trustee Chairman Wm. Brian Little at a black tie dinner in New York City honoring Grabois and his wife Miriam for eleven years’ service to the college.
Unbeknownst to Grabois, the trustees have been quietly amassing the honorary fund since the president announced in October that he will leave the college at the end of the current academic year. Little hatched the plan for the fund on the weekend of the October board meeting when Grabois made his announcement. Little’s first call was to Paul J. Schupf, a Hamilton resident and emeritus member of the Colgate board, who immediately pledged a lead gift.
Encouraged by Schupf’s support, Little recruited Trustee Vice Chairman Bruce Calvert to assist in the fund raising. Colgate Vice President Robert Tyburski staffed the effort, which approached all the current and former trustees who served with Grabois during his tenure as president.
‘We called the effort ‘The eNRGy Club’ to incorporate Neil’s initials and recognize his infectious enthusiasm,’ said Little. The original goal was to raise a fund of $2 million, Little said. When the first seven trustees who were contacted for the effort each pledged a quarter of a million dollars, Little and Calvert raised the goal to $4 million.
‘During six college campaigns I have been asked many times for major gifts,’ Schupf said. ‘This was by far the easiest and quickest decision for me owing to my great respect for both Neil and Brian.’
Little said, ‘This outpouring of affection for Neil is especially impressive coming so close to the conclusion of Campaign Colgate.’ Just over a year ago the college completed a five-year fundraising effort that totaled $158 million. ‘Current and former trustees gave $47.5 million of the campaign total,’ Little noted, ‘and several trustees stretched to make two and three gifts to allow the campaign to exceed its goal by $28 million. That they could come back within a year to create this fund is a measure of both their generosity toward the college and their regard for Neil Grabois.’
One and one-half million dollars of the gift total will fund in perpetuity the Neil R. Grabois Endowed Chair for a prominent member of the College’s Department of Mathematics (Grabois is a mathematician).
The balance of the fund will underwrite a major construction project that will reconfigure a key area of Colgate’s lower campus from a parking lot into a lawn and walkways creating a new quadrangle that architects describe as a dramatic ‘front door’ to the campus. The lower campus quadrangle will adjoin Case Library, Persson Hall, the Colgate Student Union, and a new $10 million art and art history building that will open in fall 2000. Little said Tuesday that it will fall to Grabois to designate a campus purpose for any funds that remain after the completion of the lower campus project.
Grabois joined Colgate as president in summer 1988, coming from Williams College where he taught mathematics and served in various administrative positions. While presiding over Colgate he has also taught classes when his schedule permitted.
Members of his administrative staff in James B. Colgate Hall grew accustomed to seeing Grabois and his students in his office or foyer deeply engaged in discussions of math problems. Throughout his tenure as president he has also held ‘drop-in hours’ where students were encouraged to stop by his office to share their concerns, or where he would ‘drop-in’ at O’Connor Campus Center to make himself available to students during free periods between classes.
Grabois’ presidential schedule has frequently required extensive travel, but never more so than during Campaign Colgate when he crisscrossed the country in search of support that ultimately added to the college’s endowment, provided important new buildings, underwrote student scholarships and teaching resources, and financed academic initiatives.
While serving as Colgate’s president Grabois also completed a term as chairman of the Commission of Independent Colleges and Universities (cIcu) of New York State. He is frequently called upon by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools to serve on the external review committees that examine colleges and universities for accreditation, and in fact, while still a faculty member and provost at Williams, served as chairman of the Middle States Committee that visited Colgate during its accreditation review in the late 1980s.
Throughout Grabois’ tenure, Colgate has been consistently listed by USNews&World Report among the country’s top 25 national liberal arts colleges. Colgate is featured in the current edition of Barron’s Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges.
Grabois, who is 63, has not yet announced his plans after Colgate. A trustee committee chaired by Little and advised by students and faculty is searching for Grabois’ successor.
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