Capital Giving
In addition to enjoying strong annual fund support, Eagle Hill has a history of successful capital and comprehensive campaigns. Most recently, Dare to Dream, our most ambitious campaign ever, raised over $55 million to create the PJM STEM Center and revitalize our existing academic spaces, athletic facility, and endowed funds. Previous campaigns have created the remarkable campus today’s students enjoy, as well as greater access and opportunity through scholarship and financial aid. Campaign giving creates the foundation, both physical and financial, for Eagle Hill’s continued excellence and the success of our students.
Endowment
Growing a robust endowment and providing permanent scholarship, and program support are imperative to our success. Endowed funds are an additional and essential means to preserve the long-term feasibility of the Eagle Hill design. Endowments can underwrite the costs of employing and retaining top faculty and also can affect tuition rates. Scholarship funds directly reduce or eliminate costs for some families, and overall tuition growth is slowed by the endowed funds supporting faculty, programs, and facilities, thus reducing the need to increase tuition to match growing costs. By strengthening the endowment, we will preserve our ability to offer all that makes Eagle Hill School so unique and successful.
PJM STEM Center Opening
A Milestone Event at Eagle Hill School
On September 8, 2019, Eagle Hill School celebrated the grand opening of the PJM STEM Center. The STEM Center was a thirteen-month-long project to fulfill Eagle Hill’s mission to evolve its teaching philosophy and move to a space that would encourage flexibility and collaboration. The STEM Center encompasses science, technology, engineering, and math, and has dedicated space for innovation and entrepreneurialism. Additionally, the overall project included a revitalization of the existing academic spaces moving toward more open and flexible spaces, as well as enhanced social spaces. In recognition of the way our students learn, and more importantly, thrive, the new STEM Center creates an imaginative, collaborative, and cutting-edge space for them to expand their academic experience while developing professional and technical acumen.
Funding for the center came from a $50 million Dare to Dream capital campaign and by the generosity of our board of trustees, our closest friends, and leading current and alumni families. Lead donors to the campaign and the STEM Center, Diana and Peter Merriam, chose to name the center in recognition of the extraordinary leadership of current Head of School Dr. PJ McDonald. The PJM STEM Center honors Dr. McDonald’s leadership in a way that reflects just how much he has meant to the Eagle Hill School community. At the opening of the PJM STEM Center, Dr. McDonald accepted this honor with gratitude and these words, “Over the last twenty-seven years, I honestly cannot remember a single day in which I did not want to be doing THIS job on THIS campus…. My excitement and passion to lead Eagle Hill School have never been greater. We have so many important and innovative initiatives to imagine and create as, together, we work toward building the perfect school for our children.”
To learn more about the design vision for the PJM STEM Center, see our blog post Creating the Adjacent Possible by Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs Dr. Michael Riendeau.