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Dallas
Dort Gives $1.5 Million
To New College of Florida
 (April
25, 2003) Dallas Dort, a central figure in the founding years of New
College and among the school’s staunchest and most generous backers has
donated $1.5 million to New College of Florida to support the college’s
academic mission and newly-independent status.
Dort, 95, a former rancher and attorney in Sarasota, led
New College’s first fund raising effort in the early 1960s then went on
to serve nine years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. He was acting
president of the college for the 1972-73 academic year, and helped
engineer the school’s successful merger with the state of Florida in
1974 making New College the state’s designated public honors college.
Dort later joined the New College Foundation board, and was named Trustee
Emeritus in 1998.
“From the very start, when a group of local leaders
decided to build a world-class liberal arts school in Sarasota, Dallas
stepped in to provide the energy, imagination, wisdom and wealth to make
sure it happened,” said Foundation President Ron Heiser. “And after
all these years, he’s still looking after the place. We are truly
humbled by his generosity and honored by his great faith in our future.”
Over the years, Dort and his late wife, Elizabeth, donated millions to the
school. The college’s historic entrance leading to the former Charles
Ringling mansion, now called College Hall, is named Dort Promenade in his
honor, and in 1998, Dort and his wife gave the funds to build the Dallas
and Elizabeth Dort Residence Hall on the East Campus. Of the current $1.5
million gift, Dort has asked that $50,000 go to the Rolland and Gwenne
Heiser scholarship fund in honor of Ron Heiser’s retirement this week.
Born in 1908 in Flint, Mich., Dort grew up in one of the pioneering
families of the American automobile industry. His father, Josiah Dallas
Dort, was co-founder of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, which by 1890
had become the largest horse-drawn carriage company in the nation
producing 50,000 vehicles a year. His partner, William Durant, went on to
found General Motors in 1908, and J. Dallas Dort began producing his own
automobiles in 1915 when he liquidated the carriage company and founded
Dort Motor Co. Eight years later, the company was absorbed by GM. J Dallas
Dort died two years later in 1925.
Dallas Dort graduated from Princeton in 1930 and earned a law degree from
the University of Michigan in 1933. He then began a distinguished career
in government becoming a key member of the Roosevelt and Truman
administrations beginning with high-ranking posts in the Civil Works
Administration, the Works Progress Administration, and the Office of
Emergency Management. At the end of World War II, Dort joined the
Department of State and helped develop the Marshall Plan for the
reconstruction of Europe. In 1947, he was named the special assistant to
the Assistant Secretary of State, and also served as the first U.S.
representative to the Council of UNICEF. Dort and his family moved to
Sarasota in the late 1940s where he practiced law and ran a 3,000-acre
cattle ranch.
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