December 2023 Year-End Appeal

Dear friends,

Have you ever appreciated or admired something and only found out too late that it wasn’t thriving the way you thought it was? And when that after-school arts program was cancelled, or that great little corner bookshop-café closed, you thought, “Oh, I wish I would have known. I would have loved to help that survive. We really need more things like that around here.”

Now, I’m not saying that Alcuin Study Center is as great as your favorite coffee shop, but allow me make the case that it isn’t something you’d want to lose.

Christian liberal arts colleges are struggling, and many are closing. Civility seems to be  crumbling, the Humanities are disappearing, and very few people know their history well enough to keep from repeating it. Christian Study Centers like Alcuin are, I believe, one of the best vehicles we have to address these issues. I’m not alone.

Consider this statement from Brad Littlejohn in his recent article in World magazine:

Since the formation of the first Christian study center at the University of Virginia in 1975, the Consortium of Christian Study Centers has grown to include 38 member institutions. Initially, most did little more than offer a thoughtful Christian add-on or occasional antidote to whatever was going on in the neighboring university: a C.S. Lewis reading group, perhaps, or public lecture on faith and science. Today, however, as the university finds itself in a state of moral and intellectual collapse, the study center movement has a crucial role to play in modeling what it means to pursue higher education in the first place.

(Bradford Littlejohn, World Magazine)

Alcuin Study Center (ASC) is one of those 38 member institutions.

ASC is making in-roads at Ball State University by developing relationships with professors and administration as well as with students. In addition to our in-house programming, we work together with institutions and departments at the university itself to bring the Christian tradition into the halls of academia.

A yearly staple of our programming is our series of panel discussions on Christianity and Medicine, at which we connect medical and pre-med students with physicians from world-class institutions like Mayo Clinic, Rush University, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This spring our topic for that series is The Limits of Evidence-Based Medicine. We are working on this project with the local chapter of CMDA and a professor in the IU Medical School at Ball State.

ASC is also teaming up with the Institute for the Study of Political Economy at Ball State University to bring musicologist Ruth Naomi Floyd and her Frederick Douglass Jazz Works ensemble to perform and teach on campus this February.

Our recent newsletters have documented our robust and varied programming over the past semester and have celebrated both the expansion of our space and our recently awarded grant.

This past semester alone we have served over 150 people, worked in various ways with over a dozen professors, and significantly increased our student impact. Lastly, our circulating library—a collection of books and resources curated for the purpose of deepening Christian thought—continues to gain traction in the community.

All of this points to great success. And that is, in some measure, an accurate picture.

But it isn’t the whole picture.

I know that a magician isn’t supposed to explain how the trick is done, but allow me to show you my hand.

ASC’s Executive Director doesn’t take a full salary. On paper, the salary is $50,000 plus modest benefits. In reality, we are currently able to pay about half of that, with no benefits. For the time being, I am that Executive Director. And so far this arrangement has worked fine. In fact, it was deliberate. My wife, Amy, and I knew what we were getting into when we began this venture, and personally we are doing fine financially. This isn’t about us.

However, an institution cannot survive if it cannot afford to reasonably compensate its employees. I will not always be the Executive Director, and ASC will not be able to hire my successor, when the time comes, for what that position currently pays.

Further, the building itself is owned by a board member. ASC pays no rent for the space we use. It is gifted to us by the owner. ASC raised the full $25,000 necessary for the recent expansion, but beyond that we do not contribute to the cost of the space. Again, this is a very generous and fortunate situation for a start-up non-profit, but it is not a recipe for longevity. We would be foolish if we failed to plan for facility costs in the future.

Last year we raised a little less than $68,000. This year, we are on track to raise about $100,000. But the true cost of what we are doing is closer to $250,000. The grant that we recently received is meant to be a catalyst to allow us the margin to continue operating while we raise the difference. We need to raise $150,000 in annual support over the course of the next 3 years for Alcuin Study Center to thrive.

The funds we’re raising now are necessary to maintain the institution as you see it, as well as to secure the foundation for future growth.

I’d hate for anybody to look back and say, “Alcuin was a really great thing, I’m sad to see it go. I wish I would have known the need. I would have helped.”

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Thank you to all who already give sacrificially. ASC is here because of you.

Please pass this letter on to friends and be sure to tell them why you support this endeavor.

If you are not yet investing financially in ASC, please consider doing so, and if you already are, please consider a modest increase in your pledge. Thank you.

Study Centers like Alcuin are, I believe, important contributors—maybe even essential—to the future of education, civility, and the health of the Church.