Ruth Lilly’s estate donates $10.7 million through IU Technical Education

Apr 05

Ruth Lilly’s estate donates $10.7 million through IU

The total Lilly donation is estimated near $10.7 million and will be administered and invested by the Indiana University Foundation.

About $8 million will go to the IU Center on Philanthropy, based at the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campus, and $2.7 million goes to the Herron School of Art and Design.

Lilly, noted heiress and philanthropist, died Dec. 30, 2009, at 94.

With part of its gift, Herron plans to support new programs, including a master’s in art therapy scheduled to launch in 2012, that will help it significantly improve its national stature, said Valerie Eickmeier, dean of the school.

The donation also will be used to pay down loans used to construct the school’s Eskenazi Hall, a $27 million project built primarily with private donations and completed in 2005.

The first art therapy faculty member comes on board this fall and will be able use the endowed donation to build the program, Eickmeier said.

Herron’s long-term goal is to be the nation’s No. 1 art school — it currently is ranked 43 among about 300 schools, she said. But only 33 schools have an art therapy program, and specialized offerings such as that boost a school’s prestige and recognition.

Herron also is building graduate programs in ceramics, painting and photography.

As a child, Lilly attended Herron’s Saturday School, begun in 1922 and still offered today, Eickmeier noted. Lilly supported Herron even before her death, and the latest gift speeds Herron’s “transformational” efforts, Eickmeier said.

At the Center on Philanthropy, interest from Lilly’s gift will be used to secure donor matches to endow seven to 10 faculty chairs, or positions, within the “Ruth Lilly Professorship Program,” said Patrick Rooney, executive director of the center.

Securing the matching funds, focusing on the individual chairs and conducting the national searches to fill them likely will take a few years, he said.

The gift helps the center build momentum for its ultimate goal of becoming the nation’s first School of Philanthropic Studies, building on its established “firsts” of master’s and doctoral programs and, launched last fall, a bachelor’s degrees in the field, Rooney said.

and by leveraging it to attract matching funds, its effect increases.

So Rooney also used the word “transformational” to describe the gift’s significance, in addition to “visionary” and “leadership.”

“It’s important to recognize her legacy as a philanthropist,” he said. “We think it will have a tremendous multiplier effect.”

Technical Education