The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to increase the goal of the Will to Excel capital campaign from $425 million to $500 million, the College announced yesterday.
The increase is a recognition of the campaign's overall success and an attempt to secure funding for portions of the campaign that are lagging behind in money raised so far.
The campaign is still scheduled to conclude in June 1996.
National Campaign Chair and College Trustee Richard Page said he could "pretty comfortably" predict that the $425 million would be raised by this May or June, if the campaign continues at its current pace.
But the $425 million would leave the College with several unfulfilled ambitions because the campaign received unexpected gifts for projects that were not originally on the campaign's list of objectives and because several categories of the campaign have already exceeded their goals, Page said.
Money from the $425 million goal divided into five categories: Arts and Sciences ($203 million); the Amos Tuck School of Business ($27 million); the Thayer School of Engineering ($12 million); the Dartmouth Medical School ($58 million); and the general College ($125 million).
The five-year Will to Excel campaign, which began three years ago, had raised 367.5 million as of Sept. 30, representing 86.5 percent of the original goal with only 71 percent of the time elapsed.
Despite the general success of the campaign, the most notable portion of the campaign that has been less successful than the other areas is the Arts and Sciences category. The Arts and Science endowment currently has raised 53 percent of its $130 million goal, approximately $67 million.
By raising the overall campaign goal to $500 million, Page said he hopes to meet the endowment objective and the objectives of other categories currently lagging.
"The $75 million is basically our calculation of what it would take to fulfill our priorities where we had not already achieved the money," Page said.
The unexpected gifts that have been included in the total amount raised comprises $30 million given by John W. Berry '44, George W. Berry '66, the Loren M. Berry Foundation and George F. Baker for the expansion of Baker Library.
"As gratifying and tremendous as it will be to the College in the long run, the new library was not an original objective," said Jack DeGange, director of development and publications for the College.
"The library is an extraordinary gift that will receive campaign credit," he said.
But Page said even the increase to $500 million cannot guarantee total success in all areas.
"No campaign by anyone has ever achieved all its goals and objectives," Page said. It is extremely unlikely that all holes will be filled."
The endowment portion of Arts and Sciences funds a variety of things including professors' salaries, financial aid and the curriculum expansion associated with the new degree requirements.
The College hopes to fund between 26 and 28 endowed professorships through the campaign, Page said. Each requires about $1.5 million, enough to earn interest that is used to pay the professor's salary each year.
"Any college is a fluid, dynamic organism," DeGange said. "Priorities change, needs change, but you want to fulfill original objectives -- there are many un-met priorities that fall primarily in the area of Arts and Sciences."
The College's new curriculum, which was delayed for one year because the endowment was not strong enough to support it, was not approved until after the campaign began.
"Dartmouth is an institution that is ever changing and ever growing in intellectual capacity," Page said. "Dartmouth has an insatiable thirst for resources."
The campaign's Executive Committee, which is composed of 25 alumni volunteers, recommended the increased goal in a memo mailed to the Trustees last Friday. The Trustees voted on the proposed increase without meeting formally as a group.
