Shepherd University

Shepherd University

Shepherd University, founded in 1871 as a state-supported institution, now serves as the anchor higher-education entity in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. President Mary J.C. Hendrix leads the institution, while the Shepherd University Foundation — a legally separate supporting organization governed by a board that includes Austin J. Slater, Jr. and EVP Sherri Janelle — manages the university's endowed assets and real property portfolio. The wealth underlying the endowment derives from a combination of private donations, public appropriations, and auxiliary revenue, with leadership donors including Argos USA. This is not a pure portfolio of stocks and bonds. The endowment holds direct, mission-aligned real estate that includes Potomac Place student housing, McMurran Hall commercial space, and the Agricultural Innovation Center at Tabler Farm — a 138-acre working farm on Billmyer Mill Road. These direct holdings coexist alongside pooled institutional investments, most notably the Ironwood Institutional Multi-Strategy Fund and Nuveen Global Cities REIT, placing the university as a limited partner in both hedge fund multi-strategy and global real estate vehicles. The investment posture spans public-equity alternatives, private real estate credit, and directly managed community assets across West Virginia's Jefferson County. The total endowment corpus is estimated at approximately $34 million (Altss estimate); the university does not publicly disclose a precise AUM figure. The Foundation's supporting organization structure and active board — chaired by a vice chairman of the university's Board of Governors — suggests a high degree of internal oversight relative to the small asset base. The university competes in NCAA Division II athletics as a member of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and holds specialized accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. The Foundation maintains a dedicated art collection, including the Bachner Sculpture Collection housed at the Center for Contemporary Arts. The endowment's structural differentiator is the intimacy between portfolio and place. Unlike a commingled pool run by a large OCIO, Shepherd's endowment directly owns operating campus-adjacent assets alongside its institutional fund commitments. This architecture embeds the investment function within the university's physical footprint — a governance model that blurs the line between treasury management and community development in a way that larger endowments typically outsource.