A $650,000 gift from Iowa State design college alum John Rogers will fund an in-the-works project and “challenge” other alumni to donate money.

Rogers’ gift — $50,000 in cash with $600,000 deferred — is designed to prompt others to contribute “cash gifts and pledges so that construction can begin,” according to a press release.

Campaign Destiny is ISU’s strategic plan to “become the best land-grant university in the nation.” The College of Design will benefit through a “capital project” that will dramatically update the Design Center.

ISU has received $1 million in state funding for the College of Design project, and another $1.33 million has been provided through gifts to the ISU Foundation.

“Campaign Destiny is focused around projects that will take Iowa State to a new level,” said ISU Foundation President Tom Mitchell in a press release. “This project for the College of Design is one of our top priorities for funding in 1998.”

Rogers, who received his bachelor’s degree in architecture in 1973, said his educational experience at ISU has been extremely valuable to him.

“My education in architecture at Iowa State was a comprehensive experience, covering both the technical and the artistic,” Rogers stated in a press release.”The training I received was exactly the kind of preparation I needed for the future. For that, I owe the College of Design a lot.”

Mark Engelbrecht, dean of the College of Design, said Rogers’ comments about his education at ISU are impressive. He said it is interesting that Rogers is now an investment manager and is still using his degree to help design his career.

“I’m very pleased that he [is expressing] how his design education prepares you to do a whole array of things,” Engelbrecht said.

Rogers is also an ISU Foundation governor and member of the Order of the Knoll, and he was recently named president of the College of Design Dean’s Council.

Stacy Cullison, director of development for the College of Design, said the announcement of the gift earlier this month was a “great thing for the college.”

“We’re excited about it,” she said, adding that the gift will set the pace for completing fund-raising for the capital project. Currently, the College of Design needs $650,000 to fully fund the project. The deadline for obtaining the remainder of the money is June 30.

Engelbrecht said he hopes the capital project will get underway this spring so that the building can be ready in 1999, the 20th anniversary of the College of Design.

The capital project is vital for improvement and expansion, Engelbrecht said.

“It’s our intention to turn the College of Design into a nationally prominent school of design,” he said.

The capital project is “the bricks and sticks, and technologies; the computation into all the studios,” he said. “It’s unusual, not just a big building addition.”

Engelbrecht said the project will bring the College of Design to the leading edge of technology.

“We’re not there right now, but this is going to do it,” he said. “We desperately need this project, and if it goes beyond June 30, so be it,” he said.

Cullison said there are other fund-raising goals, including expanding and improving the Rome study-abroad program and providing more scholarships to the College of Design.

Features of the capital project include:

• A 250-seat auditorium for large group coursework presentations and other college and university events.

• Development of an exterior plaza and improvements to the college’s atrium, which will focus on upgrading existing spaces to provide long-term, secure display of student and faculty work.

• Creation of in-studio computing areas, a distance education facility and an Office of Information Technology, which is designed for faculty development.

• Construction of additional studio and shop space, and the development of an electronically-enhanced graduate studio.