DATE: Wednesday, July 30, 1997              TAG: 9707300509
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   44 lines

COMPETITIVE GRANT ENCOURAGES VIRGINIA WESLEYAN FUND RAISING

Virginia Wesleyan College is young and small as such institutions go, but it's feeling a lot more grown up after winning a prestigious and competitive national grant for its building program.

The 31-year-old, 1,500-student private, liberal arts school hopes to turn the grant, a $750,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation of Troy, Mich., into a fund-raising and name-spreading tool. The college must meet its Oct. 1, 1998, ``Consider the Harvest'' fund-raising campaign goal of $25 million in order to receive the grant; pledged so far is $17.9 million.

``To give such a large grant to such a small and young institution as Virginia Wesleyan is important beyond belief,'' said Jane P. Batten, chairwoman of the campaign. ``This gives us enormous impetus to finish the campaign in a timely fashion.''

``When Kresge offers a grant of this magnitude, there is a real sense in which the recipient institution is validated in a special way,'' said William T. Greer Jr., president of the college. ``The name of Virginia Wesleyan has now made it into corporate and foundation board rooms all over America.''

That's important if the college is to meet its goal. And the need is urgent for a campus that, like money-strapped public-school divisions all around it, has to make do with portable buildings. Five of them house classes, faculty and registrar offices, and computer labs.

``We are just bursting at the seams,'' said James R. Bergdoll, vice president for college relations and development.

The private Kresge Foundation reviewed 699 proposals last year, chose 144 and awarded them $87.8 million. The grants are to help schools fulfill their missions as well as secure additional funding.

The Virginia Wesleyan grant is to be used toward the completion of a $3 million academic building just under construction and scheduled to open in the fall of 1998. The planned 25,000-square-foot facility will house classrooms and offices.

Bergdoll said the Kresge grant gives the college leverage when it seeks further personal, corporate or foundation gifts here and elsewhere, since it can plead that it could lose the grant if it doesn't reach its goal.

``Not only leverage, it gives us some new credibility,'' Bergdoll said. ``They might not know Virginia Wesleyan, but they recognize the Kresge as a leading national foundation.''

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