PU alumnus’ $5.5 million gift to fund Whitman College dorm

$110 million Whitman complex will be school’s sixth residential college.

By: David Campbell
   The family of Princeton University alumnus Bruce R. Lauritzen, who is chairman of First National Bank of Omaha, has made a $5.5 million gift to fund construction of a dormitory within the new Gothic-style Whitman College, the university announced this week.
   Whitman, to be the Ivy League school’s sixth residential college, is currently under construction on campus. Anne St. Mauro, director of Princeton’s Office of Design and Construction, said the project is on schedule, with the foundation work nearing completion.
   The $110 million Whitman complex, which will house students from all four undergraduate classes as well as graduate students, is part of a major reorganization of Princeton’s residential college system.
   In fall 2002, a 21-member advisory committee of the university issued a report recommending Princeton change its alignment from five two-year colleges into a system of paired two-and four-year colleges to create more interaction for first- and second-year students with upper-class students, graduate students and faculty.
   The Four-Year College Program Planning Committee has proposed modifications in advising and staffing, programming, housing and dining. In conjunction with building the new Whitman College, the university is reconfiguring two others — Butler and Mathey, work that is still in the early planning stages — to implement a system of three four-year residential colleges and three two-year residential colleges.
   Whitman and the two converted existing colleges are to be paired with Princeton’s three other two-year colleges — Forbes, Wilson and Rockefeller — with residential opportunities in all six for faculty and graduate students.
   The $5.5 million gift announced this week comes from Mr. Lauritzen, a member of Princeton’s class of 1965; his wife, Kimball; and his mother, Elizabeth Davis Lauritzen. Mr. Lauritzen’s late father, John R. Lauritzen, was a member of the class of 1940.
   The new dormitory the gift will fund, to be named Lauritzen Hall, will overlook the large lower courtyard of Whitman College, the university said.
   "This splendid gift brings us closer to the day when we can welcome an expanded student body to a new residential college system that will strengthen the academic and social ties within our University community," said President Shirley M. Tilghman in a written statement. "We are deeply grateful to the Lauritzens for their generosity and foresight."
   Whitman College, designed in the collegiate gothic style by architect Demetri Porphyrios, is under construction on campus between Baker Rink and Dillon Gymnasium. It is scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2007.
   The new 290,000-square- foot college will make possible an approximately 12 percent increase in the undergraduate student body planned by Princeton — from 4,554 students in 2000 when the expansion was announced to an estimated 5,100 in 2010.
   Princeton’s undergraduate enrollment at the start of the 2004-2005 academic year was 4,678 students, according to the university’s Office of the Registrar. The planned growth in the undergraduate student body is the first significant increase since the advent of coeducation in 1969.
   Whitman College is named for eBay President and CEO Meg Whitman and her family, who gave $30 million toward the new college in 2002.
   Five members of the Lauritzen family over three generations have attended Princeton, including Mr. Lauritzen’s son, Clarkson D. Lauritzen; his late uncle, George F. Lauritzen; and his cousin, Peter L. Lauritzen, according to the university.
   "Princeton offers the finest undergraduate education in the country," said Mr. Lauritzen in a written statement. "Our family’s goal is to see that the university not only maintains that excellence but even strengthens it going forward."
   After graduating from Princeton, Mr. Lauritzen received a master’s degree in business from the University of Virginia’s Darden School, where he now serves on the board of trustees. After graduating from Princeton six years ago, his son, Clarkson, worked for Goldman Sachs and received his master’s of business administration degree from Harvard Business School. In 2003, he returned to Omaha to join the family’s banking business.