August 22, 2011Cornell College has purchased a building that will reopen next fall as the college’s McLennan Center in Chicago. The center is made possible by a $1 million gift from alumni Bob McLennan ’65 and Becky Martin McLennan ’64 during the college’s recently-completed Extraordinary Opportunities Campaign. With Cornell’s distinctive One Course At A Time schedule, faculty [...]
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October 16, 2010Cornell College’s Extraordinary Opportunities Campaign raised $105.8 million, the highest total ever for a national liberal arts college in Iowa.The campaign supported improvements to several aspects of life at Cornell, from increases in financial aid through the establishment of endowed scholarships to new academic programs to improvements to campus icons like King Chapel. Gifts to [...]
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September 27, 2010A $500,000 gift from Cornell parents Peter Paul and Betsy Luce will help with plans to expand and renovate The Commons. Peter and Betsy Luce, of Englewood, Colo., connected with Cornell when their daughter Lynn was drawn to the college’s One Course At A Time calendar. Luce served Cornell as a trustee when Lynn began [...]
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August 10, 2010Jeff Mick of Facilities management, gives an overview of the King Chapel renovations so far and what remains to be done.Work started about five weeks ago on the first part of a $2.5 million renovation of the 125-year-old chapel. This summer, workers have been removing the slate tile from the roof and shoring up the [...]
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June 29, 2010Three alumni have pledged a total of $50,000 toward the renovation Cornell College’s historic King Chapel, the centerpiece of campus. Joanne Findley ’50 of Macomb, Ill. has pledged $25,000, as have Mark Hanawalt ’74 and his wife, Barbara Norton Hanawalt ’74 of Waverly, Iowa. Their gifts will help the college’s $2.5 million restoration of the [...]
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June 9, 2010Sydney Smith Hicks ’69 has pledged $25,000 for the Career Center in The Commons, in honor of her parents, David W. and Elizabeth A. Smith. The Commons opened during the spring of Hicks’ freshman year at Cornell College. Before that, students ate in one of two residence halls, separating the student body in half. Once [...]
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May 20, 2010A class of 1956 alumnus has given Cornell College $200,000 to create an endowed scholarship for Kirkwood Community College students transferring to Cornell. The donors wish to remain anonymous. The scholarship will benefit Kirkwood students transferring to Cornell College who are members of Phi Theta Kappa, the nation’s premiere honor society for two-year colleges. “This [...]
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March 1, 2010The State Historical Society has awarded Cornell College $100,000 challenge grant for the restoration of King Chapel, the iconic 19th-century building that dominates Mount Vernon’s skyline. The Historic Site Preservation Grant is set to fund repairs to the chapel’s roof, walls and masonry, including tying together the east and west walls, repointing the attic walls, [...]
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January 20, 2010MOUNT VERNON – As a Cornell College student in the 1980s, Gilda Boyer received extra financial aid and work-study when her parents both lost their jobs, thanks to the generosity of alumni. Now she and her Cornell classmate and husband, Barry Boyer, are giving back for a new generation of students. The Boyers have pledged [...]
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December 18, 2009MOUNT VERNON —Bob McLennan ’65 and Becky Martin McLennan ’64 of Chicago have pledged $1 million in order to establish the McLennan Center in Chicago, a Cornell College satellite facility that will accommodate off-campus courses that will service the school’s distinctive One Course At A Time calendar. “We wanted to do something, and we wanted [...]
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October 13, 2009MOUNT VERNON – As part of their 50th reunion gift, the Cornell College class of 1959 has donated over $220,000 in cash and pledges to the college for King Chapel renovations and the annual fund. “This gift represents the class’s commitment not only to the ongoing budget of the college, but to King Chapel and [...]
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July 21, 2009MOUNT VERNON – Cornell College trustee and alumna Sheryl Atkinson Stoll ’70 says she owes much of her success to her alma mater. Now, Cornell students can say they owe much of their success to Sheryl Stoll. Stoll and her husband William have donated $200,000 to Cornell in support of the Pre-Law Program she helped create and [...]
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June 29, 2009MOUNT VERNON – The Environmental Studies Program at Cornell College has been awarded a $316,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to enhance curriculum and further interdisciplinary study. The funds will be used to enhance integration of existing courses, develop field courses in Latin America, help introduce new courses, and to create a capstone [...]
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June 3, 2009MOUNT VERNON – A $25,000 gift from Jim Hughes ’63 will support athletic programs and will help refurbish the Richard and Norma Small Multi-Sport Center. Hughes has been a longtime supporter of Cornell, giving steadily for years. He said he had always planned to give back to Cornell in a big way. “Cornell’s always had [...]
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May 21, 2009MOUNT VERNON – Cornell College is pleased to announce that it has received a grant from the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation. Cornell College will receive $10,000 per year for up to five years and an additional stock gift. The gift will provide funding for Cornell’s environmental studies program. “This is an exceptional gift from an [...]
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April 16, 2009MOUNT VERNON – A class of 1967 alumnus has pledged an unrestricted gift of $100,000 to Cornell College as the Extraordinary Opportunities Campaign nears its $92 million goal. The donor wished the gift to remain anonymous, but encourages other alumni and friends to step forward during this crucial juncture in the college’s history. As an [...]
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March 31, 2009MOUNT VERNON — A $250,000 gift from Tom and the Rev. Martha Hemenway Durham will help provide a much-needed face-lift to the center point of Cornell College, The Commons. The Durhams are both Cornell graduates of the late 1970s, just over 10 years after The Commons opened. Now, 30 years later, the couple saw a [...]
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January 30, 2009On Wednesday, January 28, as most students were relaxing, heading home, or otherwise enjoying block break, nearly 160 students were moving into the newest residence hall on campus. Pfeiffer. While not new in the truest sense of the word, there’s very little about Pfeiffer that’s old. New rooms, new stairs, a new lounge, improved temperature [...]
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December 11, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A $550,000 gift from Cornell alumni John McGrane and Martha (Marty) Benson McGrane will renovate the President’s house, provide for a number of other campus programs, and acquire property for Cornell’s future growth. The McGranes both graduated from Cornell in 1973. John is a partner with the law firm of Morgan, Lewis [...]
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October 29, 2008MOUNT VERNON – As part of their 50th reunion gift, the Cornell College class of 1958 has donated over $677,000 in cash, pledges, and planned gifts to Cornell to endow the environmental studies program and to fund a scholarship in environmental studies. The gift honors long-time geology professor Herb Hendriks, who started one of the [...]
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September 26, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A $2.5 million estate gift will further endow a Cornell College scholarship in honor of an alumnus who died of leukemia in 1974. Lee and Dorothy Whitson, whose son Frank Whitson graduated from Cornell in 1970, established the Frank N. Whitson Memorial Scholarship Fund after the death of their only child in [...]
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September 9, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A $60,000 gift from Linda and Truman Jordan, professor emeritus of chemistry, will help endow the Cornell College chaplain position and further improvements to King Chapel. Jordan is an honorary alumnus of Cornell who began his career at Cornell in 1966. He was granted emeritus status in 2002 and has remained active [...]
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August 21, 2008Internationally renowned playwright Naomi Wallace will be the first Presidential Fellow at Cornell College this year, teaching Playwriting II in the first month. The Presidential Fellows program seeks to bring leading scholars to campus to teach a course that enriches the curriculum. Because of the One-Course-At-A-Time calendar, scholars can teach an entire course in 3 [...]
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July 28, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A Cornell alumnus has donated $250,000 to the King Chapel renovation in honor of his late wife, Ruth “Gussie” Ohlsen Warden. Charles Warden and his wife both graduated from Cornell in 1941. Charles went on to a successful career in law and real estate. The gift will fund the Ruth Ohlsen Warden [...]
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July 16, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A Cornell alumna’s $130,000 donation will help renovate Cornell College’s historic King Chapel and repair the aging organ. Lois Wilkinson Sieben, a 1938 graduate of Cornell, learned to play the organ and the piano at the college, and went on to become a church organist and piano teacher. King Chapel will be [...]
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May 15, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A $500,000 gift from Cornell alumni Dick and Beth Brubaker will help grow the Cornell College endowment fund, bring speakers to campus, create more opportunities for student off-campus study, and improve athletic facilities. Dick Brubaker, a 1955 graduate and the founder of Richwrap Inc., is in his third year as chair of [...]
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April 3, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A $2 million planned gift from Cornell alumna Jean Russell will create an endowed faculty chair at Cornell College and support other campus priorities. Russell graduated from Cornell College in 1965 and worked at Washington University in St. Louis in the Department of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, and the Division [...]
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March 19, 2008MOUNT VERNON – A $1 million gift from Cornell parent and life trustee Peter Paul Luce will expand and modernize Cornell College’s admission center. Luce, of Englewood, Colo., connected with Cornell when his daughter Lynn was drawn to Cornell’s One-Course-At-A-Time calendar. Luce served Cornell as a trustee when Lynn began at Cornell in 1989. He [...]
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March 6, 2008MOUNT VERNON —Warren DePrenger, the owner and founder of Matman Wrestling, a wrestling uniform and gear manufacturer, has donated proceeds of a pension plan valued at $700,000 to Cornell College. DePrenger, a former teacher and wrestling coach, was a four-time conference champion wrestler at Cornell and is a member of Cornell’s Athletics Hall of Fame. [...]
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February 8, 2008MOUNT VERNON – Cornell College has been awarded a grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust in the amount of $178,521 to purchase equipment for the biochemistry and molecular biology program. The funds will be used to purchase cell culture equipment, a gel documentation system, an atomic absorption spectrometer, and a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer. [...]
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January 29, 2008MOUNT VERNON — A $1.3 million living trust from an Iowa native will establish a Cornell College endowed scholarship fund for students who attended high school in and around Marshall County, Iowa. John Lively, a 1955 Cornell graduate and longtime volunteer, said he wanted to give something back to Cornell College, and to others who [...]
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December 1, 2007MOUNT VERNON — A $1 million gift to Cornell College from a Scottsdale, Ariz., couple is modernizing The Commons, creating new programs, and initiating a speaker’s fund as part of the college’s $92 million comprehensive campaign launched in October. The gift is from the Riesen Foundation, supported by Cornell graduates Dean and Bambi Riesen. Dean, [...]
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November 13, 2007MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College will establish endowed scholarship funds in music and politics with a gift of approximately $1.5 million from the estate of an alumna and former high school music teacher. Dorris Board Hill, a 1943 Cornell graduate, died July 1 in her Muncie, Ind., home. She was 84. She was born in [...]
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October 13, 2007MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College has received multimillion-dollar commitments from two alumni – $15.1 million from Richard Small of Tulsa, Okla., Cornell’s most generous benefactor, and $5 million from John Smith, president and CEO of Cedar Rapids-based CRST International – moving the college closer to a $92 million campaign goal that will be celebrated with [...]
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September 28, 2007MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College has received a $250,000 pledge from the Esther and Robert Armstrong Charitable Trust to fund a new campus bookstore in The Commons, Cornell’s student union that was built during Esther Armstrong’s tenure on the college’s board of trustees. Esther Armstrong was an honorary alumna of Cornell and life trustee on [...]
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August 27, 2007MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College has received a gift of $475,638 from the estate of a beloved speech professor who is credited with encouraging the career path of a student who would become a Hall of Fame baseball announcer. Emeritus professor of speech Walter Stromer died May 12, 2005, at age 84. He taught at [...]
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May 23, 2007MOUNT VERNON — The daughters of a Cornell College alumnus who was a leader at work, in his community and to his family have committed $400,000 to endow a scholarship fund for students who show an interest in volunteerism and working toward the common good. The Paul M. Clayton Endowed Scholarship honors a 1935 graduate [...]
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April 9, 2007MOUNT VERNON — A Chicago couple has committed $2 million to Cornell College, most of which will fund campus visits by speakers and performers who can inspire and energize students to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others. Donor Richard Williams, an attorney and Cornell alumnus, vividly recalls the impact of [...]
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October 13, 2006MOUNT VERNON — A Cornell College alumnus has donated $5 million to endow a program that will prepare future leaders in business and public policy, as a tribute to his grandfather who rose from meager beginnings to run one of the most successful businesses distributing industrial bearings. Cornell officially launches the Berry Center for Economics, [...]
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