On April 1, anonymous donors consisting primarily of alumni donated an endowment of $1 billion. This generosity will benefit current La Salle students and the future generations of La Salle for many years to come. The university’s website explains that “A strong endowment allows La Salle University students, faculty and administrators to pursue initiatives and endeavors that enhance our ability to live our Lasallian mission.”
Endowed funds are typically established in accordance with a donor’s interests such as a specific discipline, in a specific department or for use within a specific school or across the university. This endowment will go towards a few initiatives like the School of Arts and Sciences, hiring a celebrity chef for our dining services, reviving every sport cut in 2020 and increasing security.
The Arts and Sciences Initiative will go towards a few different projects. The main pillar of this plan will be updating and renovating Hayman Hall, Holroyd Hall and College Hall to make them more similar to their business and health science counterparts. Although the blueprints are still in the works, the endowment will be making each of these previously mentioned buildings twice the size of Founders Hall and have even more unnecessary windows than it. This will require buying some of Central High’s land for the project.
In addition, the Communication Center will be entirely rebuilt and moved from Timbuktu to a location on this continent. Also, each department in the School of Arts and Sciences will have their salaries raised to $1 million and receive investments in both Bitcoin and NFTs to reward them for their hard work that is oftentimes overlooked because they educate future teachers, writers, researchers, artists, ect., rather than future CEOs. In addition, this endowment will help connect current A&S students to the most elite and prestigious in their future fields so none of them ever have to hear the words “what do you do with a political science degree?” ever again.
Although the A&S initiative seemingly benefits a smaller group of students, other aspects of the endowment will go towards improving dining — something each student at La Salle can enjoy. The donations towards dining will work to hire a celebrity chef who will exclusively serve farm-to-table recipes that will combine classic home-cooked dishes and exotic dishes to the menu every day. You heard that right, no more chili on top of pasta. This position is likely to interest celebrity chefs from all over the globe, including Gordon Ramsey and Buddy Valastro. La Salle students will also be eating better because this endowment will allow the school to afford a third dining hall to give students more variety of mediocrity.
Similar to more dining variety, the athletics department will also be seeing more variety, as it will bring back every single sport cut in 2020. The sports being added back are the men’s programs baseball, swimming and diving, tennis and water polo and the women’s programs softball, volleyball and tennis. These sports were originally cut due to budget issues, which no longer exist. In addition, rather than the mustard yellow La Salle shirts that are given to the first three students at every game, each fan will get one of those cool winter jackets that La Salle athletes get. Everyone on campus will match including NARPS, the originally cut teams and pre-existing jacket-wearing athletes.
As students walk throughout campus in their new jackets, they will feel safer because the endowment will establish better security protocol. This endowment will fund a position with the exclusive duty of informing students about incidents on or near campus, so that they do not have to receive a citizen notification that reads “Man armed with scissors three feet away.” In addition, all security guards will be provided with adequate time off and caffeine so that they do not fall asleep on duty. Finally, the new endowment will hire alum William J. Burns, current director of the CIA, to be head of La Salle security. Overall, the endowment will improve life for many students at La Salle. The School of Arts and Sciences, dining services, athletics and security will all likely see immense improvement because of these funds. In addition, these improvements will increase the longevity of the entire university for years to come. Or, maybe they’ll just blow the whole thing on the new head coach for men’s basketball.
The La Salle Collegian 