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Doug Letson, President, St. Jerome's College. Raffle raises major money When the St. Jerome's College Student Union started planning a raffle last fall, the idea was to raise money for the College's Capital Campaign. But then the provincial government offered a deal that was hard to refuse: every dollar raised for student bursaries would be matched by the province. So a fundraiser for the Capital Campaign quickly became a fundraiser for bursaries. Spearheaded by Jonathan Waterhouse, work on the raffle began in December, with St. Jerome's students, faculty and staff all involved. Two dollars here, two dollars there, and before you know it $3,200 was raised, which, with provincial matching funds, becomes $6,400 for bursaries for St. Jerome's students demonstrating financial need. Photo: Ron Hewson Message from the President Like every university in Harris' Ontario, St. Jerome's has been struggling mightily but optimistically to adapt to government cut-backs which have reduced our operating grants by some 23 percent over the past few years. And like the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo, St. Jerome's has also been worrying about the decline in our student population which has been decimated by the dramatic increase in tuition rates over those same few years, increases in tuition which on a percentage basis have been even more staggering than the decrease in our operating grant. Despite all of this, one cannot but be optimistic. The new facilities we have built over the past year have been enthusiastically received by virtually all users, and the Community Centre has attracted people to the College who are finding it for the first time. At the same time, the number of people willing to offer their time and their services to help bring the resulting fundraising campaign to a happy conclusion continues to grow. The University Catholic Community is well on its way to raising the $250,000 it set as its goal in the Building Together for the Future capital campaign, an effort directed by the industry and commitment of Doug Fisher, Tom Murawsky, and their families. In addition, Kay Donovan has joined with Father Bob Liddy, C.R. to approach the local parishes and the religious communities to solicit their support; meanwhile, Gary Foran and Ted Farrell are carrying our banner into Cambridge and Brantford, respectively, with the enthusiastic assistance of Joyce Stankiewicz. Another of our graduates, Father Don Wilhelm, has had some of his own enthusiasm for St. Jerome's ignite the Knights of Columbus throughout the diocese to help raise funds for the College's campaign. One of the most ambitious undertakings in the Building Together for the Future campaign is that directed by John English, Joyce Stankiewicz, and Tony Truscello to raise $500,000 for the renaming of Notre Dame College to Sweeney Hall. As I reported earlier, the decision of the School Sisters of Notre Dame to leave St. Jerome's was both a personal loss and a practical challenge to St. Jerome's. Since the Sisters wanted to take the name Notre Dame College with them as a sign of the finality of their departure, and since they were not anxious to see the building named after any individual member of their community in that so many of their sisters had served there, St. Jerome's was left with the challenge not only of raising some $4,700,000 to cover immediate expenditures and another $500,000 for renovations to the women's residence, but also with the challenge of finding an appropriate name. The women's residence, therefore, became one of a series of naming opportunities in our capital campaign. A group of prominent local professional people seized the opportunity and decided to commemorate Kay and John Sweeney as an exemplary local couple who embody the spirit of Catholic wedded life which we have been trying to capture throughout the campaign by having it co-chaired by Pat and David Graham and sponsored by a number of local couples committed to one another, to the College, to the 'community, and to the Roman Catholic tradition. Kay and John represent just such a couple, and the naming of the residence after them as Sweeney Hall is a public statement of the values for which St. Jerome's stands, an expression of Christian love in its various manifestations: towards one another, towards their family, towards their wider community. Both are widely recognized as such, and both are greatly respected within the local community and beyond. As part of the renovations to the College, Notre Dame Chapel has been provided with a separate entrance off the colonnade walkway as well as being aesthetically and symbolically enhanced with the addition of four new stained glass windows. The windows were designed and installed by Caz Bentley, a UW graduate in fine arts and owner and proprietor of Verre Borealis, a company specializing in artistic works in glass. Caz dedicated his time and talent to the project. The end result is four gorgeous stained glass windows which are additional naming opportunities in the Building Together for the Future capital campaign, but, much more than that, they are works of art which bring to life in imaginative fashion the history and purpose of the College. There is a window dedicated to St. Jerome in recognition of the College's patron saint; there is a Marian window representative of the nourishment provided by Mary, the Church, Catholic education, and the School Sisters of Notre Dame; there is a Resurrection window designed to recall the Congregation of the Resurrection as the founding order of the College; and there is a window embodying various symbols of the educational apostolate. I think we all recognize that change can be a difficult experience for many of us, but at St. Jerome's we have decided to accept the challenge and to embrace change as an opportunity to plan for the future; to do otherwise would be to jeopardize that future. And what we have at St. Jerome's is too important to put at risk. We are grateful, indeed, that so many have elected to join with us as we build together for an exciting future filled with challenge, filled with change, but also clearly filled with promise. The number of people willing to Offer their time and their services to help bring the resulting fundraising campaign to a happy conclusion continues to grow