Colby College adds to previous giving with a $2M donation

File Photo / Maureen Milliken Colby College, in Waterville, said a $7 million gift announced Monday will establish a fund designed to support high school graduates from Bangor or Waterville who enroll at Colby.

Write a Comment

By William Hall

Two weeks after receiving a $101 million donation, Colby College on Tuesday said it has received another $2 million as part of its ongoing capital campaign.

In recognition of the latest gift, from Dana L. Schmaltz and Kate Enroth, the Waterville school will dedicate spaces in its new sports complex and at a downtown arts center due to break ground next year.

Colby will name a gallery in the planned Paul J. Schupf Art Center after Joan Dignam Schmaltz, and a pavilion in the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center after Richard R. Schmaltz, according to a news release.

Joan Dignam Schmaltz and Richard R. Schmaltz are Colby graduates and parents to Dana L. Schmaltz, a Dartmouth College graduate who heads a Boston private equity firm.

“We are deeply grateful to Dana and Kate for their incredible support,” Colby President David A. Greene said in the release. “Dick and Joan Schmaltz are emblematic of the very best of Colby and Waterville — deeply committed to family and community, generous of heart and spirit, always willing to go the extra mile to care for others. We are so honored to carry their names forward on these iconic spaces.”

The Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art will feature exhibitions from the Colby College Museum of Art’s permanent collection and specially commissioned shows from emerging and established artists. The gallery will be at the Schupf Art Center, a joint venture of Colby and nonprofit Waterville Creates! expected to begin construction on Main Street in 2021.

Colby is also currently building an arts collaborative building on Main Street, and has drawn up blueprints for the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts on the college’s Mayflower Hill campus.

Also on the campus, the planned Richard R. Schmaltz Welcome Pavilion will serve as a greeting and gathering place for visitors to the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center. The pavilion will feature abundant natural light, a wide-open space with soft seating, and a 68-square-foot interactive video display, according to Tuesday’s release.

Earlier this month, Colby unveiled plans for a gift of $101 million from the Harold Alfond Foundation — part of the $500 million awarded by the foundation to eight Maine schools, research institutes and foundations for education, training and health care.

Colby plans to use the foundation funds to also support the new athletic center, which opened in August at a cost of $200 million. In addition, the grant will help with the college’s ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown Waterville.

Colby is counting some of the Harold Alfond Foundation funds, as well as the gift announced Tuesday, in the college’s current $750 million fundraising drive. The campaign, launched four years ago, is the largest ever undertaken by a liberal arts college, according to Colby. Dubbed “Dare Northward,” the initiative aims to reach its goal by 2023. With the addition of the new gifts, the campaign has raised $555 million so far — about 75% of the total.

Two other liberal arts colleges in Maine also are making progress on capital drives of their own.

Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, launched a $500 million, six-year campaign in 2018, and to date has raised $347 million, according to its website. Bates College, in Lewiston, has collected $245 million of the $300 million the school set out to raise in 2015.