Beacon Magazine: You Stood With Us

Historic Capital Campaign Prepares Bushnell for the Future

Written by Kim Williams, Board Chair

Serving Bushnell University in a season of growth and expansion is a great privilege. Because my family has been involved for decades, I’ve also seen the University survive lean times and make hard decisions. I’ve watched us expand our curriculum, change our name (from NCC to NCU to Bushnell), and enlarge our footprint in the campus district, community, and region. As board chair in 2024, it’s now my privilege to celebrate a landmark achievement. After three years of diligent effort with generous donors, we can officially celebrate meeting and far surpassing our $18,000,000 Venture Forward campaign goal. 

I was there when the vision for Venture Forward was first finding form at the most unlikely time – during a pandemic. Early key donors helped us boldly enlarge our original goal from $14 million to $18 million, a move that accommodated then-unpredictable rises in construction costs due to Covid.

The projects have come to fruition in beautiful ways. The timely opportunity to repurpose Womack Hall came several years early as a gift from God, fulfilling the dreams of the thoughtful people who crafted that vision decades ago. My mother, Linda McKay Korth, was a trustee and an active part of those discussions back in the 1990s. Now the former Phoenix Inn is our best student residence hall serving nearly 200 undergraduates. At the same time, a partnership grew to build a shared-use baseball stadium in Springfield, which now serves us and many others as the finest facility in the Cascade Collegiate Conference. Goodrich Tower is nearly completed, with an elevator and stairs, bathrooms on each level, four beautiful melodic cast-iron bells, and a large cross on top. It stands connected to the historic Goodrich Hall on every floor, which has been fully renovated for classroom and administrative use. We will break ground on the new Duke Student Commons (home of a new dining hall and student center) soon. The new nursing program, the Song Nai Rhee Honors Program, and Bushnell Baseball programs have also been boosted by campaign giving. And, at the close of the campaign, we celebrate a grand total of $21.9M in gifts to make all these dreams come true.

 
Let me offer my congratulations to President Womack, the Board of Trustees, the Advancement team, and the whole campus community for a prayerful, courageous approach to this effort. And thank you to alumni, friends, corporate partners, and granting agencies for believing in our students and in our mission.

What’s next? We are already turning the corner into the next campaign, Venture Further, to answer emerging needs and opportunities. First, we were able to purchase the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, which occupies 1.1 acres on Alder Street in the middle of our campus. We’ve prayed for this potential acquisition for decades and will now demolish the old building to make a home for Duke Student Commons. Second, we have acquired use of the original clubhouse at Pine Ridge Golf Club to be repurposed as the Bushnell Golf Player Development Center. This new development gives us the marquee facility for NAIA golf programs in the region.

While the initial launch of the Accelerated BSN required $1M (part of the $18M Venture Forward goal), the quick expansion of the program plus growing interest in our mental health counseling programs has fueled further growth in the College of Health Professions. The vision is expanding and people, both new to us and longtime supporters, care deeply about the importance of quality healthcare in our region and have reinforced that care with significant financial investment. Bushnell is answering the urgent call for nurses and clinical mental health counselors and, in partnership with other healthcare agencies, we are learning where the next unfolding needs are.

Going forward, I’d like to offer a few important reminders. The University has an ongoing need for a fully engaged base of alumni and friends. Every year, the Trustees make decisions on tuition and room and board costs that balance the need for institutional viability and student affordability. Students and their families are often naïve to the profound generosity of donors who make it possible for us to keep costs relatively low. Many of us are unaware of the number of people who contributed to our own education years ago. Like other universities, we rely on a “pay it forward” model with alumni and friends making a Bushnell education feasible, especially for low income and first-generation students. All to say, we still need you and others. Please join us in rallying to our cause and encouraging widespread involvement. And please remember, “Prayer is the radical starting point of fundraising because in prayer we slowly experience a reorientation of all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others” (from Henri Nouwen’s A Spirituality of Fundraising).

Occasionally, I hear people lament the feeling of being over-asked or over-taxed by various organizations and institutions. And I understand that feeling. Nonetheless, we believe in what God is doing and continue to hope that you see Bushnell University as a worthy investment of your generosity as you steward God’s provision in your life.