Challenge Grant from Emerson Foundation Will Support Music Center
Skidmore has received a $500,000 challenge grant from the Fred L. Emerson Foundation
to support construction of the College's Arthur Zankel Music Center. Terms of the
challenge call for Skidmore to raise $4 for every $1 of foundation funds by November
2007, providing $2.5 million to support the new facility.
"It is a great honor to carry on the distinguished and happy tradition of collaboration
between the Fred L. Emerson Foundation and Skidmore," said President Philip A. Glotzbach.
"The Arthur Zankel Music Center and the many activities planned for it will be a shining
light for Skidmore and the entire region. We are grateful to the foundation's directors
for helping to make this dream a reality," he added. The Arthur Zankel Music Center
will serve as a gateway to the campus, due to its location at the main entrance. Construction
costs are expected to total approximately $30 million. The 48,000-square-foot building,
designed by Ewing Cole, includes three distinct modules: a recital hall and its support
areas, an academic wing, and a lobby that connects the two. The 700-seat recital hall,
which is expected to draw the general public to a wide array of performances and events,
will feature superb acoustics and a full glass wall behind the stage overlooking campus
green space.
The building will house Skidmore's Department of Music, which includes nearly 40
full- and part-time professors and instructors, and a curriculum that encompasses
some 60 courses in music history, composition, performance, and theory. The lead gift
for the music center came from the estate of Arthur Zankel, a financier and philanthropist
who was the parent of two Skidmore graduates and a 10-year veteran of the College's
board of trustees. He died in July 2005.
Over the past 40 years, Skidmore has benefited greatly from the generosity of Emerson
Foundation, which supported a number of initiatives during the construction of the
Jonsson Campus. In recognition of the Emerson Foundation's generosity, the College
named Emerson Auditorium in Palamountain Hall--one of the busiest teaching spaces
on campus--for the foundation. Buildings are not the sole interest of the Emerson
Foundation, however. In 1992, the foundation provided Skidmore with a $250,000 challenge
grant for the Fred L. Emerson Endowed Scholarship Fund. That challenge required the
College to raise $2 for every $1 of foundation funds. At the conclusion of three years,
Skidmore had $750,000 to launch the Emerson Scholarship Fund, now valued at almost
$1.5 million. Emerson Foundation Scholarship Funds support New York State students
who are seeking a Skidmore education.
Said President Glotzbach, "Skidmore takes justifiable pride in its long-term partnership
with the Emerson Foundation to enhance the campus and to assist students with critical
financial aid. We are indeed grateful for this new grant and eager to meet the terms
of its challenge. The Zankel Music Center will be the most ambitious building project
ever undertaken on our campus and a wonderful resource for Skidmore and the community.
Achieving this goal would not be possible without the generous support of the Emerson
Foundation."
