CONWAY — Central Baptist College, where enrollment has set records the past five years, has kicked off a $12 million fundraising campaign with a $5 million anonymous gift, the largest in the school’s history.
The gift, a three-year commitment from a couple who want to remain anonymous, is in addition to a $750,000 donation recently approved by Conway Corp., the nonprofit corporation that operates the city’s utilities, college President Terry Kimbrow said in an interview Monday.
“I am overwhelmed by the generosity of this couple,”Kimbrow said in an earlier news release. “They truly have a love for CBC and want to see the mission of the college strengthened and the physical campus expanded.”
In September, Central Baptist began a $5 million capital campaign. Earlier this month, the private college had raised just more than $1 million, including Conway Corp.’s gift, Kimbrow said Monday. After learning of the $5 million donation last week, Kimbrow increased the fund-raising goal to $12 million.
Kimbrow first announced the couple’s gift at a groundbreaking Saturday for a 36,000-square-foot academic building, the first major project in a 10-year campus master plan titled Vision 2020: A Miracle in the Making.
That plan calls for 10 construction projects as Central Baptist, which had an enrollment of 742 last fall, reaches a projected enrollment by 2020 of 2,020 students, the college said.
“Even at half of our present rate of growth, we will reach 2,000 students by the year 2020,” Kimbrow said in the news release.
The plan’s first three projects include the academic building, renovation and expansion of the school’s library, and construction of a third residence hall.
Construction on the three story academic building, to be built at the northeast corner of College Avenue and Conway Boulevard, probably will start late this summer, Kimbrow said in the interview Monday.
The first floor will house offices. The second floor will be devoted to the school’s Professional Adult College Education, a night program, and an online-degree program starting this fall. The college’s Bible and missions programs will be on the third floor.
While the first floor will be named in honor of Conway Corp., Kimbrow said there is not a name yet for the entire building.
The anonymous couple “will not put their own name on it, but they may have some ideas on” a name, Kimbrow said Monday.
“The new academic building is intended to be the signature building for the campus and will set the standard for all future development,” architect Rick Sowell said in the news release. “We intend to incorporate some of the more pleasing design elements from the existing facilities and begin to tie the campus together to provide a sense of continuity.”
The new residence hall will basically be two buildings connected in some way, such as by a food-service area, with men living on one side and women on the other, Kimbrow said. He estimated the dormitory would house 140 to 150 students.
Kimbrow said the school has been aggressively recruiting students. “About 60 percent of our students are Baptist,” he said, but “a lot of other denominations” also are represented.
Central Baptist board Chairman Jim Fink of North Little Rock said Monday that the donations not only help the college “meet our current needs as we set our 2020 vision,” but they also help “us meet our long-term goals.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/22/2011