Tom and Jill King have awarded $1.95 million to the University of Arkansas for its Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and for the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
The donation amount was spread across two gifts that will create three new endowments to fund public programs for the University of Arkansas schools. The largest amount of the donation –$1.5 million – will create the JATK Endowment for Public Programs in Architecture, which will fund the Fay Jones School’s public programs and events, as well as help advance its teaching and learning missions.
The remaining $450,000 will create the JATK Endowments for the Enhancement of Student Experience in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, as well as the JATK Endowment for the Enhancement of Student Experience in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.Both of these endowments are designed to positively impact “overall student educational experience,” according to a U of A news release.
Some uses for both of these endowment funds include “travel expenses, field trips, conference fees, entry fees to museums and other educationally significant venues, class supplies, incentive awards for student competitions and events…”
This donation has been counted in the university’s Campaign Arkansas capital campaign. This campaign raised approximately $1.45 billion.
“In concert with the sustaining ethos of the Fay Jones School design community, this extraordinary gift by Jill and Tom King expresses their profound appreciation for the value of architecture and design in our culture and for the value of architecture and design education,” Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School, said in a statement. “That these values would be stimulated initially by the very home that they reside in — a Fayetteville residence designed by the school’s namesake — lends their generosity a meaningful richness and durable strength. The school’s public programs in architecture and design, already essential extracurricular dimensions for our students and faculty, as well as for the larger community, will benefit immensely from this far-sighted gift, establishing an unshakable foundation of programming for the next generation of Fay Jones School students. On behalf of the school, I am deeply grateful to the Kings for their sustaining commitment to our entire community.”
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