A List
2/22/99

ADVANTAGE 2000 ATHLETICS/RECREATION INITIATIVE BEGUN AT SLU

CANTON - St. Lawrence University announces Advantage 2000, an initiative 
to attract private gifts to support a renewed commitment to athletic, 
recreation and fitness opportunities for today's and tomorrow's St. Lawrence 
students.
	Part of Campaign St. Lawrence, gifts to the Advantage 2000 Fund will 
support seven new intercollegiate sports programs and five additional coaching 
positions that have been added for 1999-2000, and the University's ongoing 
$20-25 million investment in athletics/recreation facilities enhancements. 
	Private gifts to the Advantage 2000 Fund will supplement a bond 
issued to St. Lawrence in 1998 for facilities renovations campus-wide, 
including athletics/recreation, student and academic facilities upgrades.  
	In 1998, St. Lawrence initiated construction of an all-weather 
artificial turf playing field between Appleton Arena and Weeks Field, and 
renovations to Weeks Field, including re-sodding the field; addition of 
track-and-field facilities and construction of a Victorian-style grandstand 
and fencing, to replicate the historic entrance to Weeks Field from Park 
Street that stood in the 1930s. Other planned Advantage 2000 investments 
include:  
	* Significant renovations to Augsbury Physical Education 
Center/Leithead Field House, including a glass-walled fitness center and 
new squash courts, coaches' offices and locker rooms.
	* Further renovations to Appleton Arena, including women's locker 
and training rooms. 
	* Softball and baseball fields and dugouts.
	* Crew team house, shells and chase boat.
Other priorities, and possible upcoming Advantage 2000 projects, include:
	* A new field house to include a 200-meter indoor track.
	* Six new tennis courts.
	* Several other new practice and playing fields.
	* Landscaping, parking and walkway improvements, making the 
athletics/recreation facilities a social space for the campus community as well.  
	In addition to the Advantage 2000 Program, St. Lawrence is seeking 
named endowment funds to support its intercollegiate athletic program, to 
provide on-going support for a specific sport, for equipment and for coaches, 
allowing endowed coaching positions much like endowed "chairs" fund faculty 
positions. 
	In the 1999-2000 academic year, the University will offer competition 
in seven new sports: men's and women's golf, men's and women's squash, men's 
and women's crew and women's softball. Coaches have been hired and recruiting 
is under way.
	Campaign St. Lawrence was publicly launched in the fall of 1997, and has 
a goal of $75 million for scholarships, academic support and facilities planning. 
Over $58 million has been committed to Campaign St. Lawrence to date.
	The athletics/recreation facilities projects are part of the University's 
10-year Master Campus Plan, which will result in some $100 million in upgrades 
over the decade.

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