USA Grad School News - November Update

The 19th century stalls where horses were once stabled are being transformed into 21st century educational laboratories where Salve Regina University students will feed their academic hunger for arts and culture. This unique plan to renovate and restore two of Newport's historic carriage house and stables complexes to form a new Center for Arts and Culture on campus received a significant national endorsement recently when The Kresge Foundation awarded Salve Regina a $750,000 challenge grant toward the adaptive reuse project. Salve Regina is the only institution of higher learning in Rhode Island, and one of just two in New England, to be awarded funding by the Board of Trustees at The Kresge Foundation's third-quarter meeting in September. These third quarter grants illuminate the Foundation's expanding direction. In the education sector, Kresge made 18 capital challenge grants totaling $13.7 million. Access to education, equity among all within educational settings, and environmental sustainability were common themes among the grant awards. The $750,000 Kresge challenge grant will be awarded as the final gift to fulfill a short-term, highly focused campaign planned to coincide with Salve Regina's 60th anniversary. The university has set a goal to raise $12 million in private funding, including $7.5 million for capital needs (toward the Carriage House and Stables Restoration Project), $3 million for annual/program support, and $1.5 million for endowment. In order to receive the Kresge funds, the university must meet each of these campaign goals by October 1, 2008. To date, Salve Regina has surpassed the half-way mark toward fulfillment of the campaign goals. "Salve Regina is grateful for The Kresge Foundation challenge grant," said M. Therese Antone, RSM, president of Salve Regina University. "The Kresge challenge provides a wonderful incentive for giving to the university's capital, program, and scholarship needs. The leverage inherent in a Kresge challenge grant supports the work of the university's trustees, staff and volunteers as we continue toward fulfillment of the campaign goals. The impact of this challenge grant will be felt at Salve Regina for years to come." Salve Regina's Carriage House and Stable Restoration Project includes the restoration of Wetmore Hall (the original carriage house and stables for Chateau-sur-Mer, the first of Newports grand Bellevue Avenue mansions) and Mercy Hall (the original carriage house and stables for Ochre Court, now the university's main administration building). The adjacent buildings will be joined as a Center for Arts and Culture, which will house the university's Art, Cultural and Historic Preservation, and Theater departments. The Center for Arts and Culture is scheduled for completion in late September 2008. "The Kresge Foundation has a long tradition of directing its grants to build nonprofit capacity," said Elaine D. Rosen, chair of the 12-member Board of Trustees. "With this group of grants, we also acknowledge that we must more directly confront the deep and ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country." Wetmore was built in 1852-53 for William Shepard Wetmore (a wealthy merchant and banker) as the carriage house and stables for Chateau-sur-Mer. Built by noted architect Seth Bradford, the carriage house and stables complex was the most significant "service building" of the Chateau-sur-Mer estate, and now a noted cultural and historic treasure of the Victorian Age. Both Chateau-sur-Mer (now owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County) and Wetmore were designated National Historic Landmarks in the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in February 2006. Mercy Hall was designed and built by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt in the mid-1890's as the Carriage House and Stables for Ochre Court. Hunt was commissioned by Ogden Goelet (banker and real estate developer) to build the Carriage House and Stables to support the family's summer residence. Both Wetmore and Mercy Hall share the rare distinction among nineteenth century service buildings of simply having survived, intact, well into the twenty-first century never having been torn down, destroyed by fire, broken up into condominiums, or otherwise significantly damaged over the years. The Kresge Foundation has been a driving force in the building of facilities for nonprofit organizations in the United States for the past 83 years. Its Capital Challenge Grant Program, which awards an organization a financial grant if it raises an agreed upon amount of funds from private sources, has helped communities across the country build libraries, schools, hospitals, museums, community centers and food banks, among other brick and mortar projects. The Kresge Foundation was an early advocate of green construction and sustainable design and provides green planning grants to encourage this practice. Of the 81 grants approved, 22 involved sustainable design. "This quarter represents a watershed moment for the Foundation in terms of the types of organizations and the variety of projects pursuing sustainable design," said Rip Rapson, president of the Foundation. "Sustainable design is a growing best practice that is within reach for most nonprofit organizations." An integral part of Salve Regina's mission is to be a good steward of all that it has been given. University administrators regard stewardship of the campus - both its built and natural features - as critically important and are committed to the adaptive reuse, and preservation, of the historic buildings it has acquired over time. Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has said, "... the protection and sensitive adaptation of [Salve Regina's historic] estates and their surrounding landscapes for educational use are examples of preservation at its best." For more information, additional images or to arrange a visit or interviews, please contact Matt Boxler in the Office of University Relations, 401-341-2156.