Colgate University alumni pledged a combined $105 million toward the university’s expanding campus, which includes a $25 million gift from JP Conte.
Colgate announced the package in 2025. Peter Kellner, class of 1965, gave $50 million, which the university identifies as the largest single gift ever made to Colgate. Jean-Pierre L. Conte, class of 1985, gave $25 million. Further support included gifts of $10 million each from Becky and Christopher Hurley, both class of 1981, from Robert Fox, class of 1959, and from Stephen Sprague, class of 1972.
The New Conte House
Conte’s gift names the social center that anchors the new West Campus, which Colgate describes as the draw that will pull the community across campus for events, activities, and programming. Two large residences, North House and South House, will be attached to it, and two studies nearby will hold seminars and group work.
“My Colgate experience helped me achieve my personal and professional dreams, as both a first-generation student and the son of immigrants, by providing me with an education that continues to serve me today,” Conte said. “The new Conte House will be a vital gathering place for students of all backgrounds, and supporting future generations in this way is nothing short of an honor for me and my family.”
Multiple Gifts, Different Jobs
All the commitments arrived through Colgate’s Campaign for the Third Century, a $1 billion fundraising effort launched in 2022 under the university’s broader Third-Century Plan. Kellner’s $50 million went to the campaign generally and Conte’s gift is in direct support of that building that will serve as the anchor of West Campus.
Size is one way to read a group of gifts arriving together, and function is another. A social center is used not only by people who may live directly adjacent, but also who live elsewhere and walk over. It’s a spot for gathering.
Supporting Future Housing
First- and second-year Colgate students already live in Residential Commons at the top of the hill. Juniors and seniors occupy housing built across many decades along Broad and College streets, buildings that sit close to campus and to one another and still read as separate from it.
Renovation is running alongside new construction. Work began at 66 Broad Street and continues at 70 Broad Street, and once it is finished every future senior will have the option of a single room, as will roughly half of each junior class.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects will design the West Campus buildings, with grounds and plantings by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. Neither firm is new to Colgate: MVVA worked on Peter’s Glen, and RAMSA finished Bernstein Hall, which opened in fall 2024.
What JP Conte Brings to It
Conte is founder and managing partner of his family office, Lupine Crest Capital. He is also a Colgate trustee, which puts him close to the governance conversations where capital planning of this size gets settled.
Conte was the first in his family to attend college. The phrase he used for himself in the announcement, “a first-generation student and the son of immigrants,” describes a key population the new building is meant to serve.
Colgate President Brian W. Casey put the project in institutional terms. “This moment is of great significance for Colgate, and will allow us to complete a 200-year-old campus,” he said. “These projects — and the creation of a new part of the historic campus at Colgate — will set the trajectory of Colgate for decades to come.”
