Fundraising for New Learning and Research Center Tops $1 Million

As of January, the new Learning and Research Center at Boreham Library was taking real shape, as was the UAFS Foundation’s effort to raise $5 million in private gifts to help offset the $14.2 million cost of the project.

 

Alumni and friends of the University had already given over $1 million in support of the Center, taking advantage of numerous naming opportunities. Among the areas already named are the Dr. Ted and Betty Skokos Commons, the Bruce and Eileen Worley Presentation Room, the Kyle D. Parker, J.D. Landing, the Forsgren Family Conference Room, the Farrell-Cooper Mining Team Learning Laboratory, the Carole and Jim Williamson Business Solutions Center, the Wanda and A.G. Cluck Study Room, the Babb Institute for Applied Innovation, and several study carrels.

 

But many prime naming opportunities remain, says Development Officer Anne Thomas. Ranging from $100 to $250,000, they include a reading room, study rooms, study carrels, a computer instruction lab, the Learning and Research Center’s 24-hour zone, several work and conference rooms within the Babb Institute, several computer access areas, an art gallery, a study corner, and a signature piece of artwork to hang in the Dr. Ted and Betty Skokos Commons. “We hope to have a wonderful piece to complement the Center’s striking architecture,” says Thomas. “With the large, two-story windows in the commons, the piece will have prime visibility from all angles.”

 

As what began as a framework of bare beams and girders gradually takes on the outlines of a bold, contemporary building, the Learning and Research Center is already becoming a focal point of UAFS’s growing campus. But when it opens this summer, it will be much more than that; it will be the capstone on the institution’s transformation into a premier regional university.

 

For more information on naming opportunities in the Learning and Research Center at Boreham Library, please contact Development Officer Anne Thomas at 479-788-7033, or anne.thomas@uafs.edu. Additionally, plans showing naming opportunities on the first and second floors are available.

 

See more construction images on the University’s Flickr page.