Madeleine O’Neill
News Editor
A recent $15 million donation by Ruth Whitmore Williams and her husband, A. Morris Williams Jr., will allow the College to expand science education through additional scholarships, an endowed professorship, and a new science facility.
The College announced this donation, the largest in the school’s history, on Oct. 5.
A member of the Board of Trustees since 1994 and a graduate of the Wooster class of 1962, Mrs. Williams has contributed to the College several times in the past. These contributions include the Williams Fitness Center in the Scot Center, the Whitmore-Williams Professorship of Psychology and the Whitmore-Williams Scholarship Fund.
“Ruth Williams is an outstanding trustee of the College,” President Grant Cornwell said of Mrs. Williams. “She understands that it is her responsibility to steward the integrity of our core mission and that means that she is always thinking of the quality of the overall educational experience for students.”
The donation process in cases such as these typically involved matching the priorities of the College with the philanthropic interests of donors, alumni and trustees who are willing to lend their support to those priorities.
John Hopkins, Associate Vice President of College Relations and Marketing, explained that “The Williamses are excited by our vision for the sciences at Wooster and wanted to do something significant to help Wooster achieve that vision.”
Of the $15 million that were donated to the College, $10 million will go toward an integrated science complex. According to Hopkins, the new facility will combine Severance Hall and Mateer Hall, with major renovations to, or possibly a complete replacement of, Mateer.
Hopkins said that the plan will also involve some entirely new construction which will be linked to Mateer and Severance. “A facility such as this is a very complex (and expensive) undertaking,” Hopkins said.
“We expect to complete the selection of an architect by Oct. 2014, after which the architect will work for at least 18 months to develop the plans for the integrated science facility. The earliest possible date at which we might expect to break ground is June 2016.”
In addition to the new science building, the Williamses’ donation will allow the College to introduce new scholarships for science students, although details have yet to be worked out.
An endowed professorship in computational biology or bioinformatics will also be introduced as a result of the donation.
President Cornwell explained that the Williamses intended their donation to allow Wooster students to have the facilities they need to make a difference in the world.
“It is easy to lose sight of the larger purpose of what we are doing here and how much it matters,” he said.
“A gift like that from Ruth and Morris Williams is a stunning reminder of that larger purpose; the College matters enough to them that they are moved to make an extraordinary gift, the sole purpose of which is to make Wooster better.”