Students and Faculty at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School got some big news as classes resumed Monday, a gift from the son of the school’s namesake.
“It is amazing and transformational. $75 million for us at the Newhouse school to use for people and programs. I couldn't be more thrilled.”
Interim Dean Amy Falkner was at the private ceremony where Donald Newhouse announced the donation from the Samuel Newhouse Foundation. It’s the largest gift in the University’s 150-year history.
“The impact of this gift over this time for students who are here, but also the ones who are coming is really going to shape what we are able to do with the school. For our next generation of communications leaders, whether they are journalists or advertising people or public relations or in television radio and film, those are our four bigest majors, they are all over the country when they graduate,” said Falkner.
Falkner said the next dean will decide just how the money will be used, but it won’t be for another building. She says Donald Newhouse, a 1951 alumnus, wants to expand upon the legacy that began with his father’s initial $15 million gift in 1962 that established Newhouse I two years later.
“It's great because he believes in us and so he wants us to positon ourselves as the top communication school and to be able to deliver that programming, that education, do that research, and work in partnership with industry to foretell how the road is going to go and Newhouse is going to be a thought leader in that conversation."
Falkner says students and faculty already have ideas of how to use the money. She’ll pass them along to the new dean, which the university hopes to have in place by July after the completion of a national search.
Read more about donation from SU News.
