MEADVILLE, Pa. — Nov. 14, 2002 — Standing before nearly a thousand alumni and friends of Allegheny College during the school’s Celebration of the Liberal Arts weekend, Dag and Julie Skattum offered a simple statement of challenge and commitment: Give more this year to Allegheny College’s Annual Fund, and we will match your increase.

Dag and Julie’s gift is not aimed at building a new facility or sponsoring a new program. Rather, they are simply giving back to the College that they love in hopes of inspiring others to do the same.

For the Skattums, Allegheny is synonymous with family. Four decades of Skattums have attended the College. “All of the members of our family who attended Allegheny are very different people with very different life goals and very different experiences,” says College trustee Dag Skattum, class of ’84, “yet Allegheny managed to foster a sense of belongmade it a special place for all of us.”

Dag and his wife, Julie Grosjean Skattum, class of ’85, have made a financial commitment of $1 million to the College’s Annual Fund that not only will help Allegheny but will also allow alumni, parents, and friends of the College see their own contributions to the Annual Fund double or even triple.

Although the sentiment is straightforward, its implementation is slightly more complex because the challenge offers additional incentives to Allegheny’s youngest alumni. It provides a 2-to-1 match of increased gifts from alumni of the classes of 1988 through 2002. For class years prior to 1988, the Skattums will make a 1-to-1 match of increased gifts to the Annual Fund.

But the challenge is not limited to alumni. New gifts made by parents and friends of the College will also be matched 1-to-1. For those who made contributions last year, whether alumni or friends of the college, the Skattums have extended the respective challenge matches to any increases over last year’s gifts.

“The Annual Fund takes care of essentials such as scholarships, the library, faculty support, and athletics. It also enables Allegheny to maintain our beautiful campus. Since we don’t have the enormous endowment of many other schools, our Annual Fund must be well supported.” says Dag Skattum.

“Through support for academic departments and our faculty, the Annual Fund makes possible one of the hallmarks of the Allegheny experience: close mentoring relationships between teachers and students. By helping to keep our student/faculty ratio low, the Annual Fund enables our professors to give students the attention they deserve,” says Allegheny President Richard Cook. “Dag and Julie’s commitment to support Allegheny College in this way is truly inspiring, representing the largest single Annual Fund commitment in Allegheny’s history.”

Earlier this fall, Allegheny College launched a record-setting $105 million, seven-year capital campaign. Tradition and Transformation: Making a Difference, to transform Allegheny College to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Established in 1815, Allegheny College is a nationally recognized, selective college of the liberal arts and sciences in northwestern Pennsylvania. In the recent National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), Allegheny was ranked in the top 10% in “level of academic challenge.”