Donor Withdraws Enormous Pledge to Wenham College

A California real estate developer has announced his decision to withdraw a $50 million pledge he made to Gordon College in Wenham due to “misgivings about the college’s new president.”

Dale E. Fowler and his wife, Sarah, made a $60 million pledge to the college in 2007 when the late R. Judson Carlburg was president, according to the Boston Business Journal. Additional assets totaling about $50 million were later added to that pledge.

Now, however, Fowler said that additional amount has been withdrawn due to “serious misgivings” about Gordon’s new president, Michael Lindsay, whom Fowler said they had “not had a very pleasant relationship with.“

Fowler also told the BBJ that his decision was made prior to recent controversy over Gordon’s announcement banning homosexual behavior by faculty, staff and students.

That announcement did, however, play a role in the Hamilton-Wenham School Committee’s decision last week to move the high school’s graduation ceremonies away from the Gordon College campus where they’ve been held for 20 years.