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Art Pope joined other philanthropists and community leaders on a sunny day in 2006 in Buies Creek, North Carolina, to break ground on the Campbell University convocation center named after his late brother, John. Campbell has more details in a press release: Campbell University celebrated the groundbreaking for the John W. Pope Jr. Convocation Center September 1st. Donors, administrators, and community leaders took up ceremonial gold shovels to turn the dirt at the site, located near the intersection of Main Street and Leslie Campbell Avenue. The 109,000 square foot facility is scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2008. It will house a 3,000 seat arena, Sports Hall of Fame lobby, hospitality suite, practice gymnasium, wrestling practice room, and basketball-volleyball-wrestling offices and locker rooms. There will also be a 5,000 square foot student fitness center with a stand alone entrance for student convenience. A project anticipated for decades, the John W. Pope Jr. Convocation Center will replace the 900 seat Carter gymnasium. Campbell University officials say the state-of-the-art facility will be a major recruitment tool for students and student athletes. The John William Pope Foundation gave $4.5 million in grants over a five-year period to fund the center.

Since 2004, the John William Pope Foundation has invested heavily in a program at N.C. State University “to support teaching and research activities on issues relating to public policy, politics, economics, and law.” This press release from N.C. State announces a new five-year commitment from the Pope Foundation totaling $700,000: The funding is an extension of a previous grant from the Pope Foundation, and will continue to fund the university’s “Economic, Legal and Political Foundations of Free Societies” project – which includes a lecture series, undergraduate courses and research grants for students and faculty. The grant will also continue to support the student organization, the Society for Politics, Economics and the Law. However, the new grant provides new funding for visiting scholars, project enrichment materials and administrative support. The grant was awarded jointly to the Department of Economics in NC State’s College of Management and the School of Public and International Affairs’ Department of Political Science in the university’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The grant provides $140,000 for the project each year, and runs from July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2014. To learn more about the Pope Foundation’s support for this project, check out our grantee profile.