ELCA College Receives A $26 Million Gift

ST. OLAF RECEIVES A $26 MILLION GIFT

St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., received a $26 million gift
from Dean and Rosemarie Buntrock and their family. The gift,
announced Feb. 7, is the largest single gift ever made to a
Lutheran college in the United States. St. Olaf is one of 28
colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America. The gift will finance the new "College Commons," a
160,000 square foot building that will house offices and work
spaces for student government, student organizations, conference
activities and events staff, and campus activities professional
staff. It will also include a food service operation, movie
theater, book store and post office. College Commons will be
situated between Boe Memorial Chapel and Rolvaag Memorial Library
"so that these three buildings together will create an
architectural unity linking body, mind and spirit," said Mark U.
Edwards, Jr., president of St. Olaf. "I came from a small town,
Columbia, S.D., that had few resources to provide quality
education," said Dean Buntrock, a 1955 graduate of St. Olaf.
"When I came to St. Olaf, a new world was opened to me and I
received an education that would forever change my life. We have
been blessed, and now we're privileged to return some benefits
to the college in recognition of what the faculty and college did
for me many years ago," he said. Buntrock is founder and
chairman of WMX Technologies, Inc., an international waste
services company (known as Waste Management) based in Oak Brook,
Ill.

For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html