Culver Academies is currently and will undertake some $50 million in renovations and additions in the next few years, with some rather seismic changes to the campus resulting.
This according to Academies controller Rick Tompos, who addressed Culver’s Chamber of Commerce at its Sept. 2 meeting, held at Culver Wings’ recently added pub, on State Road 10.
Tompos noted that the funding for construction projects at the school -- which is the largest employer in Marshall County, at 530 on the payroll during winter school, not counting summer staff – is derived from direct gifts, mostly from alumni.
While some projects are visibly underway now, others are still in the works, but should be underway in the near future, and will shift the campus’ physical makeup in a more logical flow within the context of student life, academics, and fine arts.
For example, Tompos said an addition to present girls’ dorm Argonne is taking place. There’s also a renovation of the entire Argonne and Chateu-Thierry dorm building interior in the works.
The Huffington Library has been under renovation all summer, with interior work being done as well as a new, ground-floor front entrance being added.
Longstanding boys’ barracks South and West, respectively, will be renovated and turned into girls’ dorms, all of which will facilitate the move of Culver Girls Academy students out of present dorms Linden and Bensen – near the motel buildings on the south and west portions of the campus – and into one central campus location.
Accommodating this will be construction of a new boys’ barracks starting a year from now, where the current campus post office stands (it will be razed). That project is expected to be complete by May of 2017.
Also currently underway is the replacement of the school’s track, which surrounds the recently-turfed Culver football field.
There’s a “concept only,” according to Tompos to add facilities to the Academies’ Horsemanship area as well, though that project is not concrete as of now.
Renovations are underway at Culver’s Henderson Ice Rink, which will enjoy new seating, an elevator, and a concession stand, while the rink’s chiller is being replaced as well.
Tompos said the Academies spent around $500,000 on back-up power across the campus this year, in response to the harshness of last winter.
Two additional cabins were added this past spring on the girls’ side of the Woodcraft Camp, and Culver’s historic golf course is undergoing a $2.5 million restoration project, to bring it back to its original, 1920s design. The course will include ten holes, a larger club house, and a new tee-off practice range.
Partnership opportunities, Academies by the numbers
Tompos also discussed recent partnership endeavors on the part of the school, including its financial support of the new emergency room at the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Plymouth – which he noted is well-used, as needed, by Academies students both summer and winter – as well as the proposed new high-speed rail system from Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago, which will hopefully have a stop in Plymouth which would help transport students to and from the school. That project, whose preliminary study the Academies helped fund, is hoped to be completed in 2018.
Discussing overall numbers related to the school, Tompos explained there were 1,392 campers at Culver’s six-week summer camps, in addition to a “full house” of 195 youngsters aged 5 to 7 in the Junior Woodcraft program earlier in the summer.
He discussed the arrival of Notre Dame football players last month during part of Culver’s Family Camp, and the new practice field constructed adjacent to the Academies’ regular football field, which the university also utilized.
This year’s winter – or boarding – school program boasts 827 students, its highest enrollment since 1967 (and that included the 8th grade class which existed in `67). The ideal number of students, according to head of schools John Buxton, is 750, said Tompos, and the school is aiming to shape enrollment closer to that number over the next several years.
He attributed the high number this year to almost 100 percent freshmen, sophomores, and juniors from last year returning.
Fifteen percent of students come to the winter school program by way of Culver Summer Schools and Camps, he noted, and about 10 percent of students are the children of faculty or staff.
Culver Academies’ endowment is currently situated at $383 million, said Tompos.
-Anna Campbell contributed to this article.