Students Excitedly Await Completion of Sally Abney Rose Physical Activity Complex
Converse’s first new building in a quarter-of-a-century is well underway. The Sally Abney Rose Physical Activity Complex has made fast progress since the groundbreaking in the spring of 2000, and Converse students are anxiously awaiting the grand opening of the new facility. The complex will be ready for the early returning athletes during the summer of 2001, prior to the return of the student body for fall term. The Sally Abney Rose Physical Activity Complex will include a soccer field, tennis courts, a multipurpose practice field, and the Weisiger Center.
The Weisiger Center will house intercollegiate basketball and volleyball courts, physical fitness training rooms, locker rooms, coaches’ offices, and physical education offices. Converse College has received two gifts of $1.3 million each for the project. The gifts are from the Abney Foundation, in honor of Converse alumna Sally Abney Rose, and from Ed and Agnes Weisiger of Charlotte, NC. Sally Abney Rose attended Converse College as a member of the class of 1937. Mrs. Rose is a trustee of the Abney Foundation, which awarded a grant to Converse in 1983 for the establishment of the Susie Mathews Abney Scholarship Fund.
The fund is named for Mrs. Rose’s mother, a Converse alumna from the class of 1911, and provides scholarships to more than twenty deserving students each year who are residents of the state of South Carolina. Agnes Binder Weisiger was a member of the class of 1963 at Converse College. Ed Weisiger formerly served as Chairman of their Board of Trustees. In addition to their current contributions for the Weisiger Center, the Weisigers also provided support for the reinstatement of Converse’s NCAA Division II athletic program in 1998.
Although several new donors have joined the project since groundbreaking, Converse continues to seek $1 million to complete the funding. Donors who give $500 or more will be recognized on a plaque that will hang in the field house lobby. For larger gifts, various naming opportunities remain. The Sally Abney Rose Physical Activity Complex is the first step in an ambitious, five-year, comprehensive campus master plan for Converse College. The plan also includes a new science/technology building with state-of-the-art classrooms that provide additional academic facilities with room for growth, enhancements to the Montgomery Student Activities Center that will provide a more attractive social environment for students, renovations to residence halls and many of the existing campus buildings, a new road that connects the entire campus from within the fence and extensions of the current fence to fully enclose the main campus property.