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Church music and academics will be enhanced thanks to WCAL proceeds

By Amy Gage
February 14, 2005

When the St. Olaf Board of Regents voted in August 2004 to sell its public radio service, WCAL, to Minnesota Public Radio, its stated reasons included a desire to focus more intentionally on academics and the college's core strengths, such as its renowned music programs.

President Christopher M. Thomforde made that intention a reality recently with an announcement of how the college plans to use the $10.5 million in proceeds from the sale.

The money will be used for three endeavors: restoring the organ in Boe Memorial Chapel, fully endowing a chair in the college's church music program and endowing up to four faculty chairs.

"The heritage of WCAL will live on as we recognize and facilitate our faculty's outstanding work in direct benefit to our students," Thomforde said in an e-mail message sent to faculty, staff, students, alumni and the Board of Regents, which previously had approved the three-part plan.

"Given our mission to be the nation's best liberal arts college of the church, I am delighted to elaborate upon the ways in which proceeds from WCAL will further our musical heritage of worship at the college."

The organ in Boe Memorial Chapel will be rebuilt and restored at a cost of approximately $1.5 million. Another $500,000 will be spent to renovate portions of the chapel in order to support the new instrument.

The organ will make a difference to everyone who worships at Boe Chapel, said John Ferguson, who is Elliot and Klara Stockdal Johnson Professor of Organ Music.

"This is a new organ for the community that gathers five days a week for our daily chapel service and on Sunday for the service led by our student congregation," he explained. "It's for the many people who visit us, for those who listen to chapel services through audio streaming online and for those who look to us for the modeling and teaching of church music. Boe Chapel is our laboratory."

Last August, the college announced its intention to sell the station after being approached months earlier by MPR President Bill Kling. The Federal Communications Commission approved the sale in November, and MPR assumed control of WCAL, known as Classical 89.3, later that month.

Thomforde said at the time that the core mission at St. Olaf is to educate students and prepare them for lives of worth and service. "All of our resources must be devoted to that pursuit," he said, adding that proceeds from the sale of the station would go into the college's endowment -- "which will enable St. Olaf to enhance programs that further the college's mission."

A total of up to five faculty chairs will allow the college to do just that. St. Olaf will spend about $2 million to fully endow a chair in the church music program, building upon resources that already have been donated.

And the college will establish three to four Distinguished Service Faculty Chairs, at a cost of approximately $2 million each, "to honor our best teachers, scholars and campus citizens," Thomforde said in his announcement. The Dean's Council, under the leadership of Provost and Dean of the College James May, is establishing criteria and a process for selecting the professors whom the college will honor with a faculty chair.

With an endowment valued at approximately $185 million, St. Olaf College lags behind many of its peer institutions not only in total endowment but also in endowment per student. In the 2003 NACUBO Endowment Study, St. Olaf placed 223rd among 717 colleges and universities nationwide for the size of its endowment.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.