University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
The Messenger
Vol. 5, No. 1/1995
Recognition: A Special Report
$15 million gift from Gore family to fund new classroom building on UD
Mall

     A gift of $15 million from a prominent Delaware family-one
of the most significant gifts in the entire history of the
University of Delaware-will support the construction of a new
classroom building on the University's Mall in Newark.
     The gift from alumnus and trustee Robert W. Gore, alumna
Sarah I. Gore and Genevieve W. Gore makes possible the first
addition to the tree-lined heart of the campus since H. Rodney 
Sharp Laboratory was built in 1961-62.
     When President David P. Roselle announced the gift Aug. 8 at
a ceremony on the Mall near the site of the new building, the
audience of approximately 200 University faculty and staff gave
the Gores a standing ovation.
     "This is truly a remarkable gift from the Gore family to the
family of the University," Roselle said, "and it's fitting that
the support be used to complete the campus core, as it was
envisioned nearly a century ago. The Gores join the ranks of the
University's most generous benefactors-H. Rodney Sharp, H.
Fletcher Brown and P.S. du Pont-whose generosity is so much in
evidence on this beautiful Mall.
     "It is a distinct pleasure for me to publicly thank the
Gores for their continuing generosity to the University," he
said. "The family's active interest and enthusiastic support over
many years have had tremendous impact on the life of this
University and have enhanced the lives of many of our students."
     Bob Gore, speaking on behalf of his mother, his wife and
himself, said, "Today we are creating a vision. Our University
leadership visualized an opportunity to enhance the future
development and quality of education here at the University of
Delaware through the building of a new, centrally located
academic hall. Beyond the possibilities of improved teaching,
...they also recognized the important opportunity of adding to
the beauty of the Mall, of adding a special building, one that is
in total harmony with what is already here, yet one which could
achieve its own character and could be unique in its own way....
     "We want to congratulate the University leadership on the
positive changes that are occurring here and the vision shown in
this current project," he said. "The Gore family is pleased to be
part of that today, and we find pleasure and satisfaction and
excitement in being a part of the team that is helping make it
happen."
     Gore said that he, Sally and his mother "all have a strong
belief in the power of education and its ability to change
people's lives in a positive way, so we feel that our gift will
bear fruit for future generations....
     "Our family has a long history of ties to the University,"
Gore said. "Forty-five years ago when my father's job was
bringing our family to Delaware, my parents, Bill and Vieve,
chose Newark as our home town primarily because of its proximity
to the University of Delaware. They hoped there would be special
opportunities for us in the kind of environment that a University
can create, and indeed we feel they have been right."
     Gore also said the recruitment and selection of a "truly
renowned architect" is especially "noteworthy and exciting." The
architect, Allan Greenberg, is noted for his love of and
expertise in classical architecture-the style of the other red
brick buildings on the University Mall. He was recommended by the
University's Visiting Committee on Architecture because committee
members felt he could design a building that would blend in
perfectly with existing structures at the heart of the campus.
The committee, appointed by the Board of Trustees, is chaired by
the architectural historian of the U.S. Capitol, Bill Allen, a 1972
graduate of the University.
     Allen, who introduced Greenberg at the ceremony, said, "Just
being on this Mall has an effect on everyone-students and faculty
and visitors....We understand-through the scale and proportion
and the quality of materials and the quality of design-we
understand intuitively that we are in a very special place."
     Allen said undertaking an addition to the Mall presents two
challenges: To honor the legacies of the past and to "pass down
to future generations something that will be an honor to our own
age."
     Calling Greenberg "the very best practitioner" of classical
architecture today, Allen said the architect was being asked "to
build a building that will look like it has been here a long
time...and yet be its own building, be assertive, be bold, be
beautiful, be exquisitely detailed....
     "We know that Allan [Greenberg], with his incredible talents
for classical architecture, will be able to give something that
our children and our grandchildren will look back on with the
same kind of pride that we now look back on our ancestors who
gave us this beautiful University," Allen said.
     "The challenge of designing a building within an historic
district is one of the most exciting and most taxing that an
architect faces today," Greenberg said. "Noble architecture and
campus plans are most often created over time and by numerous
architects. The Piazza di San Marco in Venice, the United States
Capitol in Washington and Saint Peter's in Rome and the great
campuses of Harvard, Oxford and Yale were all designed over time
and represent the ideas of a succession of architects.
      "The new building at the University of Delaware is an
opportunity to talk across time to the architects who have
ennobled this Mall and to understand the importance the
University has attached to its architecture in the past and now,"
Greenberg said.
     "This is an exciting architectural opportunity to address
present needs and to prepare for the future, while finding the
optimal balance between current circumstances on the one hand and
enduring human values on the other," he said.
     University Provost Mel Schiavelli said the new building will
significantly enhance the University with classrooms that
support the latest in instructional technologies. "Many of our
existing classrooms were designed in and for another era of
teaching," he said. "The new facility will accommodate a range of
classroom styles, including problem-based learning and seminar-
style teaching."
     A committee of distinguished UD faculty has been formed and
is working on classroom design issues with the architect,
Schiavelli said.
     Charles Forbes, vice president for development and alumni
relations at the University, said, "On an occasion as momentous
as this, it is appropriate to pause and reflect that we Americans
are uniquely blessed by our long history of, and deep commitment
to, private gift philanthropy. No where else in the world is the
spirit of helping each other, of giving to each other, such an
important part of our national way of life and our own individual
way of life....
     "The Gore family joins a small but important group of past
benefactors who, in large measure, have provided a foundation for
so much of the excellence that distinguishes this University
today," Forbes said.
     Andrew B. Kirkpatrick, chairman of the University's Board of
Trustees, concluded the ceremony, noting "This is a glorious
summer day and a very grand day as well for the University of
Delaware. I'm pleased to be a part of it and very proud to
represent our Board of Trustees in extending to the Gores-to
Vieve, Sally and Bob-our heartfelt thanks for their magnificent
gift....
     "To me, this gift is special in many ways, in addition to
its size and the merit of its purpose," Kirkpatrick said. "The
very act of giving, is of course, something that we generally
regard as positive. Giving outside the family to an institution,
especially an institution as worthwhile as this, is particularly
noble. But, after creating wealth, as the Gores have done in
their business, arranging through a gift to such an institution
for the preservation of that wealth in perpetuity is the grandest
act of all.
     "The enduring value of this gift is reflected in a
definition of school, which goes as follows, 'School is a
building that has four walls with tomorrow inside.' Tomorrow is
what this gift provides," Kirkpatrick said.
     Kirkpatrick presented the Gores with framed prints of a 1928
revised version of the 1917 Day & Klauder plan for the
development of the University's Mall, which shows a building to
be built at a future time on the site for the new classroom
building.
     The new classroom building will be built on the Mall between
Mitchell Hall and Sharp Laboratory and will be connected by the
overhead walkway across South College Avenue to the
classroom/office building, Smith Hall.
     Currently, there are 141 general purpose classrooms on the
Newark campus, with capacities ranging from 14 to 392 students.
These classrooms housed 2,077 sections each week in the 1994 fall
semester and 1,989 sections last spring.
     Classrooms are in use from 8 a.m.-10 p.m. each weekday to
serve the 17,000 students who attend classes on the Newark
campus.
     EDiS of Wilmington will serve as construction managers for
the classroom building. Construction is expected to begin next
summer, with scheduled completion in the fall of 1997.