7 minute read
Bringing Promising Futures within Reach: Thomas College
SCHOOL PROFILE | THOMAS COLLEGE
Bringing Promising Futures Within Reach
Advertisement
Written by Erin Baltes
ABOVE: Thomas College students make their way to class inside the Harold Alfond Academic Center. AS A WATERVILLE INSTITUTION, Thomas College has literally been around the block. The school began in a classroom over the old F.W. Woolworth building downtown in 1894. Decades later, having outgrown the space, it was moved to Silver Street as Thomas Junior College. In 1971, the college found its permanent home on West River Road along the Kennebec River. Though it has relocated and seen many upgrades, new majors, and more than 8,500 graduates in its 127-year history, Thomas College has held fast to its commitment to serving students and preparing them for personal and professional success.
That focus has helped many Mainers succeed in their quests to earn college degrees and build careers — and, in turn, allowed Thomas to enlist the help of the Harold Alfond Foundation.
“Thomas College offers an academic experience to students who want and need to be brought in and benefit from that college experience,” said Harold Alfond Foundation Chairman Greg Powell. “That helps move our country in the right direction — right in Waterville, Maine.”
STARTING WITH SPORTS The Harold Alfond Foundation began investing in Thomas College and its students in the 1980s, inspired by its namesake, Harold Alfond, and his unwavering commitment to education and the City of Waterville.
In the early 2000s, the college began planning for an athletic center that would support health and recreational opportunities, as well as the training needs of its athletic teams. Adding the facility would help improve the campus and meet a significant need among existing and future enrollees. The project was about more than sports; it would have a long-lasting impact on its growth and sustainability, thus improving the college’s ability to graduate more students. With some outreach among the college’s leadership, as well as hard work among students, who produced a compelling video asking Mr. Alfond to visit campus, the philanthropist agreed and The Harold Alfond Foundation came to invest in
the project with a $1.25 million challenge, committing to match each dollar raised for the effort.
As the project timeline advanced, the college’s campaign to generate a total of $4.6 million for construction was slightly short and needed a final push to get it across the finish line. Harold offered a second challenge, the first having been a success: raise $300,000 in the next 40 days and, through the Foundation, he would match it. This generous offer also proved successful.
“I’ll never forget meeting with Harold about the project,” recalled longtime board member and alumnus Conrad Ayotte. “He was very pleased with the results and quietly said, ‘Don’t forget that I do academic buildings too.’ We never forgot that.”
EXPANDING ACADEMIC CAPACITY The college’s enrollment did indeed begin to grow, bolstered by the 38,000-square-foot Harold Alfond Athletic Facility, as well as new majors, faculty members, and a residence hall. By 2009, classrooms were oversubscribed, there was a need for additional professors, and the college’s library had seen little change since its construction in the 1970s. Then-President Dr. George R. Spann and the Board of Trustees saw clearly that a new phase of growth was on the horizon for Thomas College.
As leadership developed a campus master plan that aligned with the college’s growth strategy, one of the top and most immediate needs was for a new academic building. Again, the team
set out to generate the funding needed, buoyed by its own investment — and would, at the same time, seek to grow scholarship aid and other student-centered programs.
Harold Alfond Foundation Chairman Greg Powell, having taken the reins after Harold’s passing, announced in a surprise event on campus the Foundation’s next challenge to the Thomas community: a $5 million matching opportunity that could be leveraged to spur on excitement for the project and donations for the Dream. Transform. Achieve. Campaign.
“We held that event in a room packed with students,” said Associate VP of Advancement Erin Baltes. “The looks on their faces about the Harold Alfond Foundation’s gift — they were priceless. It was an incredible way for the Foundation to inspire students, so many of whom are from Maine and the first in their families to attend college, to care about and participate in philanthropy themselves.”
The Harold Alfond Academic Center was constructed and opened in 2014 thanks to the Foundation’s support and the successful matching effort.
GREG POWELL
ABOVE: The Harold Alfond Academic Center opened in 2014 and added classrooms, a new library, faculty offices, and welcoming study spaces to the Thomas College campus. The 34,000-square-foot facility houses classrooms, the Kenneth and Eva Green Library, a financial center, faculty offices, study rooms, a café, and the college’s Student Success Center, where students can access tutoring and mentoring supports from both peers and professionals.
“The space spoke to them and says, ‘You belong in this kind of environment. You are worthy of this,’” said Debbie Cunningham, VP of Student Success and Engagement.
In addition to the physical space, the Harold Alfond Foundation earmarked $1 million of its $5 million gift in the creation of the Alfond Scholars Program, providing scholarship aid to hardworking Maine students with financial need. The endowed gift was another signal to the college, its students, and supporters that Thomas was worthy of investment.
“Any institution that guarantees its graduates a job is an institution we want to support,” said Powell, referring to Thomas’s Guaranteed Job Program.
“To be prosperous and to remain leaders in the world, our state and our country need to educate more of its citizens,” he continued. “The jobs of the future are going to require education. Thomas helps us get there and they do it in a very effective way, by reaching out to first-generation college students and bringing them into an environment that is vibrant, with great faculty and leadership. What more could you ask for?”
THE NEXT HORIZON Under the leadership of its first female president and Thomas alumna Laurie Lachance, the college looked to celebrate its long history of educating Maine’s business community. President Lachance made the case to the Founda-
tion that embracing innovation in business was key to the state’s economic future — and that Thomas was the school to help do it, with the Foundation’s help.
Thus was born the Harold Alfond Institute for Business Innovation, a center for instruction, training, events, mentoring, and access to talent — all within the context of entrepreneurship and innovation — for the small to mid-sized businesses of central Maine and beyond.
Spurred on by the college’s growth and service to students and the central Maine region, in 2020, the Harold Alfond Foundation announced its next significant commitment to Thomas College students: a gift of $13.5 million — the largest in the college’s history — in support of a variety of initiatives. These included supporting the college’s sustained excellence and growth through the launch of new academic programs in leading-edge fields; enhanced student retention programs; expanded affordability initiatives; and a deepening of academic and employer community partnerships through the Harold Alfond Institute for Business Innovation.
“The Foundation’s historic gift is a true vote of confidence in our vision of providing unparalleled professional and career development that is affordable and grounded in a solid foundation of business, technology, and innovation, and our college’s legacy of producing the workforce to catalyze economic growth,” said President Laurie Lachance, who took the helm in 2012 and is herself a Thomas alumna.
“The Harold Alfond Foundation has clearly been a frequent benefactor,” said Ayotte. “From starting with construction and supporting the growth of our campus, they have invested in so much more — particularly the successful academic and scholarship programs that are vital to our students and our economy. What we are really talking about here is encouraging people to believe in the dream of a college degree — and then helping them achieve that dream.”
College
UNDERGRADUATE & GRADUATE PROGRAMS
Flexible full-time, part-time and on-line courses in:
• Business • Entrepreneurship • Technology • Education • Criminal justice • Psychology
WHY THOMAS?
GUARANTEED JOB PROGRAM
1st in the nation
23rd in the nation in VALUE
Money Magazine 2017
Top 15% in upward mobility
NY Times data 2017
PERSONAL. PRACTICAL. GUARANTEED.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Productivity, Engagement and Retention are the names of the game today in the workplace.
It’s no secret that training and education are the best ways to ensure that your employees are the most productive and engaged as possible.
Companies that have their workforce involved in comprehensive training programs enjoy a 24% higher profit margin than companies that don’t.
Want be er results for your company and employees? Check out the Institute’s available Professional Development courses.
For more information, or to sign up for a course please visit thomas.edu/training
