Belmont Abbey College . . . Launches $100 Million Campaign To Fund Campus, Academic Improvements
By PETER PINEDO
WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA) — Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic liberal arts school in North Carolina noted for its adherence to Church teaching, has launched a $100 million capital campaign to finance a host of campus and academic improvements.
The ambitious goal — equivalent to a roughly eightfold increase in the college’s current $12 million endowment — would fund a new performing arts center, new academic programs, and a new monastery for its resident Benedictine monks, whose predecessors established the now 1,500-student school in 1876.
In addition, the campaign aims to dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate reliance on federal aid, which is increasingly tied to LGBTQ mandates and other conditions at odds with Catholic teaching, in part through new stewardship programs designed to help students graduate debt-free.
With $72 million already secured, Belmont Abbey aims to reach its goal by 2026 to coincide with the school’s 150th anniversary. The college formally announced the campaign at a gala Saturday night, February 18 at Founders Hall in uptown Charlotte, about 20 miles east of the school’s campus in Belmont.
“We’ve come to this point in time in the history of Belmont Abbey where it’s really ready just to explode and to flourish,” the college’s president, William Thierfelder, told Catholic News Agency.
Titled “Made True,” the campaign has three tiers, each aimed at different goals:
The first tier, “Made Free,” tied to promoting personal freedom and virtue, earmarks $15 million for new career, vocation, and family programs, as well as the construction of a new performing arts center and a new monastery to replace the brick structure the monks constructed by hand in 1888.
The second tier, “Made Strong,” centered on protecting religious liberty and ensuring faithful Catholics have a voice in the public square, aims to invest $30 million in programs in nursing, public policy, and finance.
The largest portion of the campaign, called “Made Secure,” seeks $55 million to secure Belmont Abbey’s financial freedom so it is not dependent on federal aid.
“This is a campaign that is not just about Belmont Abbey College,” Philip Brach, the school’s vice president of college relations, told Catholic News Agency. “It’s a campaign that is going to impact the culture, the Church, and the country.”