CLU gets $5 million pledge, its biggest yet

California Lutheran University has received the largest gift in its history, a $5 million pledge that also represents one of the largest private donations ever in Ventura County.

The gift comes from Jack Gilbert, a former member of the CLU Board of Regents and board chairman of TOLD Corp., a developer based in Camarillo.

Over the past two years, Gilbert and his wife, Carol, also contributed $4 million to the university's new sports center, which is scheduled to open in fall 2006 and will be named in their honor.

"It's my belief that the school is going through a very critical time," Gilbert said. "The first few years they were just getting traction, but now they're going through a major change.

"Now they need a number of other buildings ... and we want first–class facilities."

Gilbert has asked that $1 million of the $5 million gift be used to build a home for the president of the Thousand Oaks university. The home, which would also be used for university events, may be built on the current site of the school's Early Childhood Center. The center is set to be moved as part of the university's 20–year master plan.

President Luther Luedtke now lives in a home he owns near campus.

The rest of the donation will help pay for new science and performing arts buildings, as well as other facilities, said Bill Kane, chairman of the Board of Regents.

"We'll be able to put it to where it's needed, and you don't get that too often," Kane said.

Daniel Geeting, a music professor at CLU for 21 years, welcomed the prospect of a performing arts center.

"We have so many ideas that we'd like to do, but we can't do because our facilities are thoroughly inadequate," Geeting said. "We're very grateful."

Gilbert's donation is separate from an earlier capital campaign, called Now is the Time, that wrapped up in May. That campaign had a goal of raising $80 million and ended up raising $93 million, Kane said. Roughly 6,000 people contributed. In addition to funding the athletics complex, the money has been used to build an education technology building, as well as two academic centers. It is also paying for scholarships and a speakers series.

Now, the university is in the early stages of planning a second capital campaign that could get going about this time next year, Kane said.

Both Kane and Gilbert hope the $5 million gift will maintain the momentum achieved in the first fundraising campaign, inspiring others to give, too.

"The school is really beginning to blossom," Gilbert said. "There's plenty of room for other people to join in."

Undergraduate enrollment at CLU has grown this year, increasing by 168 students to 2,017.

Academically, the school is growing, too. More incoming freshmen were in the top quarter of their high school classes –– 60 percent, up from 56 percent last year, according to U.S. News and World Report. The magazine also reports more students are graduating; the average graduation rate is 64 percent, up from 59 percent last year.

And just this week, CLU moved up in the magazine's annual college rankings, placing at 16th on a list of the top regional universities in the West.

"We've got smarter people coming in, and we're keeping them," said spokeswoman Lynda Fulford.

Two of the other biggest private donations in Ventura County's history also involve education.

In 1999, Oxnard rancher John Broome donated $5 million to California State University, Channel Islands. That gift will be used to renovate an existing building that will become the university's library.

And in 2000, businessman Martin V. Smith donated $5 million for the university's business school. Martin died in November 2001.

As for Gilbert, he figures contributing to education is simply "the right thing to do."

"If we're going to solve the problems of the world," he said, "it's going to come through education."