University of Wisconsin School of Music received a $25 million donation that will allow them to finally break ground on a new building toward the end of 2016.
The donor, the Mead Witter Foundation, has a long history and connection to UW. The Mead family, from Wisconsin Rapids, owns a large percentage of the city’s paper mill. Many people in the area, such as the Mead family, sent their children to UW, Susan Fiefth, Vice Chair of Mead Witter Foundation said.
Fiefth said her husband’s grandfather, George Mead II, sent his children to UW just as his great grandfather had before him.
“Our family has a long, long, connection to the university,” Fiefth said.
After initially proposing the donation in May, several months of discussion between the foundation and Chancellor Rebecca Blank ensued before both sides came to an agreement, Fiefth said.
Plans to build a new School of Music building have been underway since 2007, Susan Cook, Director of UW’s School of Music, said.
But due to the 2008 economic recession, the new construction faced several setbacks, Cook said.
If it had not been for the Mead Witter Foundation’s donation, Cook said, it would have been likely the plans for the building would have pushed off even further in light of the recent budget cuts.
“It was just a hard time for state funding and private funding as well, which is why we are so incredibly excited to get this recent major gift so that we can move forward,” Cook said.
The design for the new School of Music building emphasizes the importance of having acoustic spaces that allow students and performers to have a state of the art experience when they are onstage, giving the audience to have the type of listening experience the school wants them to have, Cook said.
Though the building itself will be named after the first major donors for the project, Pamela and George Hamel, the concert hall inside of the building will be named Mead Witter Concert Hall.
The school’s name itself will also be changed to the Mead Witter School of Music, Cook said.
“[The name is] to make sure we recognize the magnitidue of that gift its not that commom on our campus, but it’s much more,” Cook said.
Though she joked the School of Music will have to change all of their business cards and stationary, Cook said it is something they will gladly do.
