UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 39, Page 1
August 17, 1995
Gore family gives gift 'with tomorrow inside'

     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 Mall.
     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 crowd 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. 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."
     Roselle shared remarks made 65 years earlier on the Mall at the
dedication of Mitchell Hall. At that earlier ceremony, Samuel Chiles
Mitchell, the former president for whom the building was named, paid
tribute to Hugh Rodney Sharp, the man who had made that building
possible.
     "I think the words spoken then ring true today," Roselle said,
"for they speak of unswerving loyalty to one's alma mater and of
confidence in the future."
     Roselle then quoted Mr. Mitchell:
     "It was a notable day when a lad from Lewes put his foot upon the
campus of this college....That youth cherished here dreams. Perhaps
dreams are the only enduring part of college training. Facts change,
with a rapidity that surpasses belief; and above all, the
interpretation of facts shifts from day to day. But, dreams abide.
Among the visions which that lad cherished here was that of an
expanded college, serving even more nobly the people of this state and
nation. This dream sprang out of his sense of loyalty, and loyalty...
is just about the loftiest emotion in the mind of man. It is not
necessary for me to seek to describe his dream. Merely look around.
Not that it has all, as yet, been realized; but definite stages in its
development are seen with our eyes in an extended campus, solid
buildings, a growing faculty and student body and vibrant intellectual
influences that are widely felt....What we see today are not buildings
in brick and stone....What we dwell upon today is the loyalty of a
body of friends."
     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" was especially "noteworthy and exciting." The architect is
Allan Greenberg, who 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.
     Carol Hoffecker, Delaware '60, Richards Professor of History,
noted that the gift from the Gores for a new building on the Mall
fulfills "a dream that had its beginnings over 80 years ago."
     In 1915, architects Frank Miles Day and Charles Z. Klauder were
hired to provide a development plan for the area that is now the Mall.
Day conceived the plan for a mall to stretch from Main Street to a
large central building. In 1918, Marian Cruger Coffin, one of the
country's outstanding landscape architects,  was hired to provide a
landscape plan for the entire campus. "Their vision now will be
completed with the addition of this final and much-needed classroom
building on the Mall," she 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 Jr., 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 last 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
project. Construction is expected to begin next summer, with scheduled
completion in the fall of 1997.