Bennington Receives $20 Million from Robert & Susan Borden ’69: Single Largest Gift in the College’s History

Robert and Susan Paris Borden ’69 have made an historic $20 million gift to Bennington College.

“We are inspired to make this gift for a number of reasons—to honor the College’s 75 years of educational innovation, to celebrate President Coleman’s 20 years of transforming, spirited leadership, and to support Bennington’s next great pioneering initiative,” said Bob and Susan Borden, an alumna and College trustee, on the announcement of their gift.

Bennington is developing a new curricular program that will bring an undergraduate education into the heart of the most urgent public problems facing societies throughout the globe. The College plans to locate, throughout its curriculum, courses and experiences that will enable all of its students, regardless of their academic interests or vocational plans, to become committed to and capable of addressing the most urgent issues of our time.

“For the foreseeable future, generations of young people will inherit an unequal, unstable, and unsustainable world,” Mr. and Mrs. Borden continued. “The danger to democracy is that, without a new kind of college education, too many citizens may feel increasingly powerless, overwhelmed by the magnitude and complexities of urgent, real-world problems.”

“Our aim,” according to President Elizabeth Coleman “is to harness the intellectual power, passion, and boldness of our students and faculty and apply these resources to pressing world problems. In regaining the lively and generative association between citizenship and education—once understood to be the cornerstone of American democracy—we also intend to bring a new and renewed intensity and depth to liberal education. The Borden’s remarkable generosity makes such dreams possible.”

Lord Holme of Cheltenham, (Richard Holme), Member of the British House of Lords, and chairman of GlobeScan and of Bennington College’s International Advisory Council, explained, “Bennington is unique in its ground-breaking approach to and delivery of higher education over the past 75 years. There can be no more important business in education than widening and developing the international perspectives of the brightest and best of young Americans. Whether we like it or not, we are all nowadays citizens of the larger world."

“This extraordinary gift represents an unprecedented moment in Bennington’s history. The College had planned to announce its intention of raising $75 million by the end of Bennington’s 75th anniversary year. Now with the splendid generosity of Bob and Susan Borden, we’ve already far exceeded that objective, enabling the trustees to raise their goal to $100 million,” said Deborah Wadsworth, Chairman of the Board.

During its October 5, 2007 reunion weekend, Bennington College will begin a year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary. The College opened its doors in 1932 after many years of planning by a unique group of educational innovators including pioneering philosopher of education, William Kilpatrick. Bennington was the first college of its kind to treat students as protagonists in their own education, and the first college to introduce the visual and performing arts into the liberal arts curriculum. The many luminaries that have taught at Bennington include dance legend Martha Graham; the father of modern management Peter Drucker; Pulitzer prize-winning writers and poets W.H. Auden , Howard Nemerov, Theodore Roethke, Stanley Kunitz, Bernard Malamud, and Mary Oliver; economist and author of the seminal book The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi; internationally renowned social psychologist and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm; and many of the nation’s most important painters and visual artists including Sir Anthony Caro, Jules Olitski, and David Smith.

“Bennington is unique in the world of higher education, “ said Bob Borden. “For 75 years it has used its advantage of small, flexible size and a willingness to teach on the frontiers of human knowledge to break new ground. While many talk about educating today’s students for tomorrow’s world, Bennington is doing it.”

To read the Rutland Herald's coverage of this historic gift, click here.
To read the Burlington Free Press' coverage, click here.
To read the Bennington Banner's coverage, click here.