Mount launches $50 million fundraising campaign
Feb. 10—Mount St. Mary's University on Thursday announced a $50 million campaign it said was "among the most ambitious and impactful fundraising efforts in the university's 215-year history."
The "Our Mission, Our Moment, Our Mount" campaign aims to raise money for three separate endeavors — launching a School of Health Professions, renovating the campus science center, and building a new athletics facility.
The school hopes to raise $20 million each for the School of Health Professions and the science center renovations, and $10 million for the athletics project.
So far, the school has raised more than $22 million, according to a page on the university's website dedicated to the campaign. About $11.5 million of that is for the School of Health Professions.
The school will house the Mount's applied behavior analysis graduate program and other graduate programs that are currently in development, including ones for physician assistants, nurses and psychiatric nurse practitioners.
It will also feature a program called "Care for America," which will "teach students how to care for underserved patients by incorporating a focus on service, advocacy, resourcing, healthcare equity and inequity, and volunteerism," and a Center for Clinician Wellbeing, which will "teach students to mitigate burnout using wellness tools, meditation techniques and coping strategies," according to a university press release.
The health professions school will be in a currently unused wing of the St. Joseph Provincial House in Emmitsburg, which is being donated by the Daughters of Charity.
Renovations to the wing are set to begin this year, and the school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2024.
The school will also hold a functioning behavioral health clinic that will serve Emmitsburg and nearby communities.
Another $8.2 million of the $22 million raised so far is for a renovation and expansion project at the university's Coad Science Building. Originally built in 1964, the facility is too small for the university's growing community of STEM majors, officials have said.
The building is slated to gain 21,000 square feet in the project, which will begin in March.
The third focus of the campaign is to "address the recent growth in and success of the Mount's athletic programs."
In the past six years, the university has doubled its number of student athletes and netted 17 conference titles and nine NCAA tournament appearances, Thursday's news release said.
To accommodate growth, the university hopes to build the Rooney Athletic Performance Center, which will house multiuse courts, workout spaces and campus recreation offices.
About $2.2 million has been raised toward the project's $10 million goal.
In a statement, Mount President Timothy Trainor said the three projects "position the Mount for the next 100 years and serve our community."
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