Fall 2002
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Fall 2002 |
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 By
Richard EkmanAt a time when several national foundations are lowering the priority they give to higher education, it’s refreshing that other funders, well known in their own regions, continue to offer generous support to colleges and universities. The Buhl, Mabee, Irvine, Murdock, Gund, Woodruff, Bradley, Hall Family, Ahmanson, Jessie Ball Dupont, Lilly, and Bush Foundations, for example, remain active supporters of colleges and universities, and focus most of their giving on particular areas of the country. And a new regional foundation, the Robert and Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, just announced a whopping $35 million in grants to six liberal arts colleges in the Southwest and the South. Regional funders differ in their interests, of course, reflecting the views of their founders and current boards of trustees, but the array of purposes they serve—including student aid, building construction and renovation, libraries, diversifying the student body, endowment, faculty positions, and curriculum innovation—is impressive. Why have regional funders remained especially stalwart supporters of smaller private colleges and universities? A clue may be found in the “request for proposals” that the Priddy Trust sent to 19 liberal arts colleges earlier this year. The RFP observed that a student’s experience in higher education “is often fragmented by such factors as very large classes, the lack of interaction with faculty members, incoherent and unrigorous general education requirements, frequent transferring from one institution to another, and emphasis on graduate research to the detriment of undergraduate learning. One kind of educational institution, the liberal arts college, has successfully countered these factors…. Despite their excellent performance… there is a danger that decreasing percentages of American college students will have the opportunity for this kind of education.” The Priddy Trust is a relatively new entity. Robert Priddy, who made his fortune in oil drilling and exploration, and the members of the Trust’s board had, for many years, been generous supporters through the Priddy Foundation of a wide range of social and cultural causes in and around Wichita Falls, Texas. None of the Trust’s principals is a graduate of a liberal arts college. Yet, when the Priddy Trust conducted its open-ended analysis of possible uses of the approximately $35 million it intended to award as grants, support for liberal arts colleges in the region emerged as the highest priority. While each of the six winners (four are CIC members: Austin, Hendrix, and Rhodes Colleges, and Southwestern University; the two others are Colorado College and Trinity University) will use its grant in a different way, it is noteworthy that basic operating costs are being covered, stiff matching requirements must be met, and endowment is sometimes included. Almost all the grants include substantial funding for students, making the distinctive advantages of this kind of education more readily available to those of limited financial means. Mr. Priddy and his colleagues believe that strengthening the basic financial condition of a college is one of the more important uses of philanthropic dollars. A college and its community have a symbiotic relationship. With little burden on the state’s taxpayers, a private college offers its community a source of educational opportunities, expertise on subjects of practical use, employment, an infusion of consumer expenditures by students and staff and by the college itself, and cultural programs that are open to the public. In recent years, private colleges and universities have been the pioneers in expanding opportunities for students to learn while addressing community needs. This leading role is not surprising, given the deeply held traditions of service—often religiously-grounded—at private institutions, but it comes as a surprise to those who do not understand the close economic and civic connections between independent colleges and the public. The idea of local, private support for higher education is not new. The Citizens’ Scholarship Foundation of America has, for nearly half a century, been organizing local and regional chapters to raise scholarship funds, on the premise that it is good for a community to facilitate a college education for its talented young people. More than 1,100 CSFA chapters now exist. Many regional foundations also date from an era when state and federal support of higher education was far less plentiful than it is today; their leaders have long understood the necessarily close connection between the vitality of a region and the well-being of its colleges and universities. Today, when many Americans are drawn to things that are large and uniform—from national entertainment programming to mass-produced and mass-marketed products—it’s good to see the mutual resolve of so many regional funders and independent colleges and universities to maintaining the strength of institutions that serve Americans in their diverse locations. As these funders have focused on distinct regions, they may have, paradoxically, succeeded in the aggregate in formulating a national agenda of support for higher education. Their emphasis on a type of institution that is demonstrably more effective than others is preserving the variety and strengthening the vitality of distinctively American institutions. Independent |
