LaGrange College launches fundraising campaign

LaGrange College has launched a comprehensive fundraising campaign with a goal of $45 million to $50 million.

The campaign is designed to “propel the institution and its students to new levels of distinction,” college president Dan McAlexander said in a news release.

The centerpiece of the “From Promise to Prominence” campaign is a 43,000-square-foot laboratory science facility being constructed along Vernon Street. It will comprise state-of-the-art spaces for instruction in anatomy/physiology, biology, chemistry, ecology and immunology. The $21 million project, including renovations to the Cason J. Callaway Science Building, is scheduled to be completed by January 2017. Earl Swennson Associates of Nashville, Tenn., is the project’s architect, and Batson-Cook of West Point, Ga., is the construction manager.

The campaign’s other projects are:

▪  Increasing student scholarships through the LaGrange College Fund

▪  Expanding the Global Engagement Initiative

▪  Supporting the Servant Scholars program

▪  Retaining and recruiting world-class faculty

▪  Broadening endowed scholarships

LaGrange College alumnus William Hodges is chairing the campaign’s steering committee. He is chairman, chief executive officer and co-founder of Hodges Ward Elliott, a hotel brokerage and investment banking firm in Atlanta.

The LaGrange-based Callaway Foundation made the campaign’s lead gift of $8 million. Jerry and Janet Caswell’s donation of $2.5 million is the campaign’s largest contribution from living alumni so far, according to the release.

More information about the campaign is at www.lagrange.edu/prominence.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 3:12 PM with the headline "LaGrange College launches fundraising campaign."