CONWAY -- Hendrix College announced Friday it has raised $73 million of a $110 million fundraising campaign aimed at building an on-campus mixed-use project featuring an art museum as well as increasing scholarships and other opportunities.
The $73 million includes a $26 million gift announced last year from the estate of oil heiress Mary Ann Dawkins. Also included are two gifts totaling $15 million and announced Friday.
One was a $5 million donation by Hendrix alumna and board of trustees member Carolyn Miller and her husband, David Miller of Dallas, from the David B. Miller Family Foundation. The other was a $10 million grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation of Siloam Springs.
"The campaign, titled 'Be Hendrix,' will support scholarships, as well as new programmatic centers for career services, diversity and inclusion, and teaching and learning," the private liberal-arts college said in a statement announcing its efforts.
A major part of Hendrix's plans will be the Miller Creative Quad in the center of campus on the site of Hulen Hall.
"The new mixed-use project will combine student living space with classrooms, faculty offices, and practice space for music, as well as a new art museum and auditorium," Hendrix said.
That project is expected to cost $24 million, which includes $16 million for construction and $8 million for a museum endowment.
Hendrix spokesman Rob O'Connor said the fundraising campaign began privately in fiscal 2012 and has a target completion date of May 31, 2021.
Hendrix President William Tsutsui announced the campaign at an outdoor ceremony shaded by trees as audience members sat in front of the site of a future welcome center, already under construction and financed with part of Dawkins' $26 million gift.
The museum will be named the Windgate Museum of Art.
"We are proud to partner with Hendrix College in this critical initiative," said John Brown III, executive director of the Windgate Charitable Foundation. "Not only will the Creative Quad and Windgate Museum of Art connect the creative arts to every student's experience on campus, it will be a tremendous resource for the central Arkansas community and regional artists."
Tsutsui said the Creative Quad, with its arts and other offerings, "will infuse the very heart of campus" and will draw on concepts that have made Hendrix Village so popular. That multi-use area includes restaurants, apartments, offices and houses and lies directly across the highway from the main portion of the Hendrix campus.
The school needs to push again on its efforts to make the college more affordable and to increase student diversity, Tsutsui said, and it needs to offer more services aimed at connecting students to jobs after college.
Hendrix, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, doesn't need to be like other colleges but should "stay true to [its] spirit," Tsutsui said.
To be Hendrix, Tsutsui said, "We don't need stadium renovations ... or fancy skyboxes in the end zones."
State Desk on 10/29/2016