Dartmouth's Engineering School Launches $60 Million Campaign

CONTACT: Catharine Lamm
603/646-3943

Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering has announced its goal to raise $60 million to enhance the undergraduate and graduate engineering experience at the College. This initiative coincides with the overall Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience which launched on November 13, 2004.

The laboratories, hallways, and workspaces of Thayer School are overflowing with engineering students, equipment, and projects. Adding to the space crunch are the ever-popular technology courses for non-engineering majors which attract over 300 additional undergraduate students to the School each year.

South view of the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center

To address the need for additional space, construction has begun on the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center. This new facility is designed to enhance Thayer School's agile, project-centered, interdisciplinary approach to teaching engineering. Unique features will include studio classrooms, multimedia computing systems, next-generation research facilities, and integrated project labs. These labs in particular will support one of the cornerstones of engineering education at Dartmouth—teaching innovative design skills through hands-on, team-based projects.

As fund raising continues for the new Engineering Sciences Center, campaign funding priorities encompass all the areas of the School that will be impacted by the expansion: the annual operating budget, faculty support, student financial aid, and discretionary funding to sustain innovation and creativity in the classroom and the labs.

Thayer School's overall campaign goal is $60 million. This goal was established through strategic planning and review and includes the following priorities:

MacLean Engineering Sciences Center: $35.6 million

Thayer School Annual Fund: $6.4 million

Student Financial Aid: $4 million

Chairs and Faculty Support: $6 million

Dean's Venture Fund: $4 million

Technology & Liberal Education Fund: $1 million

Total: $60 million

Thayer School began fund raising for the new building in July 2002 during the "quiet phase" of the campaign. The lead gift from Barry D'60 Th'61 and Mary Ann MacLean has been augmented by additional gifts and pledges so that, at the time of the public campaign launch, over $35.3 million—or 60% of the goal—has been raised.

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Founded in 1867, Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering offered the nation's first professional engineering program designed to follow 4 years of undergraduate education. Today, the School comprises both the Undergraduate Department of Engineering Sciences at Dartmouth and a graduate professional school in engineering.