Your path: Marylhurst Sees Future
Marylhurst Sees Future From Historical Perspective
Excerpt from an article by Dana Tims in The Oregonian, March 20, 2008.
Anyone driving along Oregon 43 between Lake Oswego and West Linn likely can identify that sprawling, gorgeously landscaped slice of land hugging the Willamette River as home to Marylhurst University.
Far fewer are familiar with the university's founders – a dozen determined nuns who journeyed from Montreal to Oregon nearly a century and a half ago.
"The risks that the original sisters took to get here is really central to our narrative touchstone," said David Plotkin, Marylhurst University's vice president for academic affairs. "They continue to give us the freedom and courage to explore and innovate."
In the mid-1970s, for instance, private single-sex colleges were closing by the score.
The sisters took a radically different tack. One evening in 1974, they closed as a traditional residential women's college and reopened the next day as one of the nation's first coeducational liberal arts institutions focused on lifelong learning for adults.
More recently, the university relied entirely on private donations to finance the most extensive renovation campaign in its history.
The three-year, $25 million effort will culminate next month in a "buy-a-brick" program. As many as 10,000 bricks will be sold for $100 each. Donors also can "buy" benches and lampposts for $500 and $2,500, respectively.
The major-donor campaign, when combined with the buy-a-brick program, will leave the university entirely debt-free.