Spelman College has received the largest gift from living donors in its 137-year history and they already have big plans for the money.
Ronda Stryker and spouse William Johnston dropped a $30 million gift on Spelman to help build the Center for Innovation & the Arts, the College’s first new academic facility since 1996.
Chicago architect, Jeanne Gang, founding principal of the firm Studio Gang, has completed a schematic design of the 85,000 square foot building that will occupy a current parking lot at Spelman at the corner of Westview Drive and Lee Street.
The College has raised more than one-third of the total cost to build The Center for Innovation & the Arts.
For the first time in the College’s history, the same building will house all of Spelman’s arts programs – art, art history, curatorial studies, dance, digital media, documentary filmmaking, photography, music and theater.
The cost of the new facility, which includes an operating endowment and state of the art technology, is $86 million.
The CI&A enables the College to bring together in one building its considerable strength in STEM with its award-winning programs in the arts.
Ayoka Chenzira, Ph.D., division chair for the Arts, Arts@Spelman has developed a new initiative and several new majors and minors that join Music and Theater & Performance including:
Documentary Filmmaking (major)
Photography (major)
Dance Performance & Choreography (major)
Art History (major)
Curatorial Studies (minor)
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