Supporting the Way Ahead

Why should our alumnae, parents, and friends invest in Madeira? Today, Madeira women are leaders in their communities. Madeira—the School, the founder’s philosophy, the experience—prepared them for the various roles they perform so effectively, from PTA member to CEO. The voice they developed while learning and living around the Oval is the voice that now resonates in classrooms and kitchens, in boardrooms and committee meetings.

A financial gift to Madeira helps assure that we sustain the voice that can change the world as long as we continue to develop young women capable of assuming positions of leadership and service.

The goal of The Way Ahead Campaign is to provide The Madeira School with a strong financial footing as it enters its second century. Our primary aim is to add $50 million to our unrestricted endowment. Gifts to our endowment will provide us with a predictable annual income that we will invest in our faculty and students, as well as the facilities we rely on to enhance the educational experience.

Distinguished Faculty

Madeira’s faculty are among the finest, most talented teachers and scholars in the nation. Two-thirds hold advanced degrees in their field, and over sixty percent have been teaching for more than ten years. Faced with an impending teacher shortage at a time when the need among all schools for high quality instruction is intense, Madeira must make good on its commitment to recognize excellence in its teachers by keeping their compensation competitive. Generous gifts to unrestricted endowment will enable us to raise salaries, endow chairs for distinguished teachers, allocate funds for professional development, enhance compensation through sabbaticals, increase contributions to faculty pensions, and offset the high cost of living in the region.

Financial Support for Students

That Miss Madeira herself was a recipient of financial support at Vassar perhaps explains why the School she founded has such strong history of providing assistance to bright and talented girls. Today, about one out of every five Madeira girls receives aid at a total cost of approximately $1.44 million a year. This figure is modest when compared to the schools with which we compete. By expanding our financial aid budget to $2 million, we will enhance our ability to recruit girls with the academic strength and personal character to benefit from what our school offers. We need to double our endowment for financial aid to meet Miss Madeira’s expectation that girls with a range of academic talents and an eagerness to use their voices can gain access to the educational opportunities we offer.

Learning Environment

Madeira’s investment in facilities is guided by a campus Master Plan that reflects the high priority we place on designing, renovating, and adapting space that enhances the living and learning environment for our students and their teachers.

We want to create classroom and community spaces that support how girls learn by promoting strong relationships with attentive adults and enhancing girls’ connections with each other. Many of our classrooms date back to the 1930s. Appropriate for teaching methods at that time, these rooms are too small or not adaptable for today’s approach to teaching, which includes creating student teams, using technology to facilitate learning, conducting seminars, and enhancing instruction with audio-visual presentations and computers. An investment in Madeira’s facilities helps assure an academically rich educational experience for both students and teachers.