Shenandoah University launches $100M fundraising campaign

Shenandoah University has launched a $100 million fundraising campaign that aims to add a major new arts center, upgrade athletics facilities and create endowed professorships and new course offerings.

Shine: The Sesquicentennial Campaign is the largest capital drive in the Winchester university’s 150-year history. Its private phase began in July 2022 and surpassed $85 million in gifts and pledges by the time the public phase kicked off during the university’s “Our Legacy, Our Future 150th Celebration Gala” on Sept. 13, 2025.

“Our supporters have been really incredible,” says SU President Tracy Fitzsimmons. “They’re really excited about what’s happening at Shenandoah, and they are eager to show that.”

The campaign ends June 30, 2027. The largest donation so far, $20 million, was given by alumnus Wilbur Dove and his wife, Clare, toward the university’s new $65 million Concert Hall & Center for the Arts, which will support the university’s dance, music and theater programs plus a new visual arts major. The university expects to break ground on the arts center in late 2026.

“It will educate people to be art therapists, to be art educators, so they can teach in the K-12 setting, and also for students interested in digital arts and marketing, and people interested in being visual artists,” Fitzsimmons says.

Discussions also are underway with architects and potential donors about adding more locker rooms for the university’s new athletic teams and a weight and exercise room at the university’s James R. Wilkins Jr. Athletics and Events Center. There’s no cost estimate yet, but work could start in late 2026 or early 2027, Fitzsimmons says.

The Shine campaign also will support endowing chairs and professorships and adding new academic programs such as a bachelor’s degree in engineering and master’s degrees in speech-language pathology, nutrition and diet, and mental health counseling. Additionally, it will help fund paid internships; student engagement through clubs, organizations and volunteerism; and keeping education at Shenandoah affordable, the university’s president adds.

Some donors have already offered to fund endowed chairs and additional workstations for SU’s cybersecurity lab and an augmented virtual reality lab at Shenandoah’s Hub for Innovators, Veterans and Entrepreneurs (HIVE), says Fitzsimmons.

“There is so much good happening here,” says Fitzsimmons. “We have a saying here, ‘It’s a great day to be a Hornet,’ and it really is.”