Last Word - Report of Appreciation 2007
A Breathtaking Year

“Breathtaking” is how I describe our 2006-07 fund-raising and overall University advancement year.  Following on the heels of 2005-06, when the generosity of spirit throughout the St. Lawrence family of alumni, parents, friends, foundations and corporations produced an all-time high cash gift total from private sources of $22.6 million—20% more than our best year in history—you set a new all-time record: $22.9 million!  There were several gifts of $1 million or more, and these and other large gifts and grants were combined with literally thousands of smaller gifts of just about any size to make up this total. 

All gifts, large and small, were important; all exemplify the thoughtfulness and generosity that is so deeply characteristic of the St. Lawrence community.  Our remarkable students are the beneficiaries of the transforming work of our faculty and staff made possible by your philanthropy.  Thank you, most warmly.

We use your gifts to accomplish teaching and learning of a very special kind, and to keep St. Lawrence accessible to students from the full range of family financial backgrounds.  We seek for our students an education that takes them deep into disciplinary knowledge while at the same time they come to understand that solving real-world problems requires multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. 

An education for the 21st century must also be about analysis, synthesis, teamwork and problem-solving, high-level written and communication skills, critical and creative thinking, intercultural knowledge and competence, quantitative literacy and information literacy, and it must inspire students to become lifelong learners.  This kind of education requires student engagement and commitment.  You can’t just go to college and buy it; you have to work for it in an academically demanding environment where faculty have high expectations with regard to both learning outcomes and level of student effort.

On the University’s side of this equation there must be a rich array of opportunities for student learning, both academic and co-curricular, and a faculty and staff prepared to engage students where they are and take them forward.  That too requires commitment, the special commitment of the teacher-scholar—faculty who themselves are lifelong learners and who bring students into the life of the mind—and the commitment of staff who support faculty work and who themselves contribute to student development directly.

With regard to student outcomes, the evidence is clear—there is no form of higher education in America more effective than an academically demanding, student- development focused, selective residential liberal arts college.   It is, of course, also expensive if you’re going to do it right, and we could not do it right without your abiding generosity.

Your generosity also enables us to be sure that, despite the overall expense, large numbers of students of low and very modest means can afford to attend St. Lawrence.  I am so very proud of that; I hope you are too.

As I write this we are getting to know another new class—the Class of 2011, selected from the largest applicant pool by far in the University’s history.  It is evident that the wider world is noticing what your gifts to St. Lawrence enable us to do.  Demand for St. Lawrence is at an all-time high.  Ultimately, it is our students who are the beneficiaries of your support.  We are so deeply grateful that you help make all of this happen.  Thank you!

Alexander W. Astin, “How the Liberal Arts College Affects Students,” in Steven Koblik and Stephen R. Graubard (eds), Distinctively American:  The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges (New Brunswick, New Jersey:  Transaction Publishers, 2000), 77.