Le Moyne College expands to match gains in enrollment, endowment and prestige

This morning, college will break ground on $20 million science center expansion.

When Fred Pestello became president of LeMoyne College two years ago, things were not looking up on the hilltop campus nicknamed “The Heights.”

The $50 million fundraising campaign had stalled at $30 million. Thirty fewer students enrolled than planned, costing the college hundreds of thousands in revenue. And the endowment had dropped disastrously with the crash of the stock market.

Pestello, the college’s first lay president, launched “One LeMoyne,” a soul-searching, campuswide discussion to help chart the college’s future. (The license plates on his Acura RDX read “1LEMOYNE.”)

In the midst of that discussion, something astonishing happened: A Binghamton couple left the college $50 million, mostly in IBM stock, in November 2008. That boosted the fundraising campaign total to $90 million.

LeMoyne’s fortunes turned quickly. This morning, the college will break ground on its largest building expansion ever — a $20 million, 48,000-square-foot science center that has been 10 years in the planning. Enrollment is up, the endowment is up, and the view from The Heights has improved dramatically since Pestello first stepped on to campus.

“You’d be very hard pressed to find a college which in this time is setting two consecutive records in enrollment, has an endowment double what it was two years ago, and is engaged in the biggest building project since the college was founded,” Pestello said. “It is rather remarkable.”

This fall’s freshman enrollment will top out at about 625, Pestello said, beating last year’s record of 612. That was the first time the college had topped 600 freshmen.

Pestello attributes the increase to the good publicity surrounding the college, plus increased marketing efforts and a positive review in the 2009 Princeton Review college guide, which ranked LeMoyne among the top schools in the Northeast.

Not only are more students attending, but they also are paying more. The college’s discount rate — the gap between the tuition set by the college and what the average student actually pays — has dropped, meaning more money for the college. Tuition for 2010-2011 will be $26,350.

The science center is the centerpiece of the college’s expansion. Designed to accommodate growing engineering and health sciences programs, the building will house classrooms, laboratories and the college’s largest lecture hall, and will be angled toward the south to capture sunlight that will help heat the building.

LeMoyne is also building a new bookstore, pizzeria and coffee shop to replace a crumbling plaza just off the southwest corner of campus. Other projects include installing an artificial turf field for the team’s winning lacrosse and soccer teams and renovating Grewen Hall to create the Dolphin Den student lounge. Total cost for those projects is about $8 million.

“Everywhere you look something exciting is happening,” said economics professor Mark Karper, who has taught at the college since 1977. “To see all of this going on, four different projects at once, it’s kind of an exciting time to be at LeMoyne. I think, wow, it’s finally happening.”

The science center construction was spurred by the $50 million gift from Robert and Catherine McDevitt, of Binghamton, given to the college after Robert McDevitt died in 2008. The money was to be used for enhancing science and religious education.

Neither of the McDevitts attended LeMoyne, but Robert McDevitt’s cousin, the late Rev. Edward L. McDevitt, one of the original Jesuits to serve at LeMoyne, helped establish its physics department after the college was founded in 1946.

The gift was among the four largest gifts ever to Jesuit colleges in the United States.

The college’s good fortune is cause for celebration, Pestello said, but he also warns that the college has significant challenges ahead. The number of high school graduates in the Northeast, LeMoyne’s primary market, is falling. The economy has not recovered.

“As I tell the faculty and staff, it’s just a little bit of a breather in what, when you look at it overall, are incredibly challenging times,” Pestello said. “We’re almost like this little oasis given all these wonderful things that have happened to us, but we have to realize it’s a terrible time economically — demographics are challenging, unemployment remains high and the future is still uncertain.”

--Contact Glenn Coin at gcoin@syracuse.com or 470-3251.