The Hopkins Center will receive a $5 million gift from The Howard Gilman Foundation to endow the directorship of the Hop and provide "venture funds for new Hopkins Center initiatives," the College announced in a press release Monday. With the donation, the Hop surpassed its $10 million fundraising target in the Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience, according to Jeffrey James, the director of the Hop.
James will be the first recepient of the newly endowed position of Howard Gilman Director of the Hopkins Center. The position is named in honor of Howard Gilman '44, who served on the Hopkins Center Board of Overseers between 1977 and 1984.
The endowment will be administered in a manner similar to endowed chairs in academic departments, James said, adding that some of the funding will go towards the director's salary.
"This idea of endowing the directorship was the single largest priority for the Hopkins Center," James said.
The new endowment will also allow the Hop to expand many of its key initiatives, James said, including commissioning more arts venture projects, such as the "XOVER" piece by Merce Cunningham that was performed last Fall term.
"[The donation] will give us some more solid support for doing that kind of work," James said.
Natalie Moody, chairman of the Howard Gilman Foundation, also hopes the endowment will be used to commission unique artistic endeavors.
"Mr. Gilman always wanted to encourage new things, and we hope that they will be able to commission new works by groups that may have been tapped before, or may not have been tapped before," she said.
The Hop also hopes to use a portion of the donation to bring more technology-based art to the Dartmouth community. According to James, this medium is a rapidly growing focus for many artists and performers and one which he thinks the Hop should strive to include.
"We have very little existing means of support for doing [technological] artmaking," he said. "This will give us a way to venture into those modes."
Other beneficiaries of the endowment could include some of the campus performance groups sponsored by the Hop. Many of the Hop's ensembles are performing at distant locations, James said, and he expressed an interest in increasing funding for these groups to make such travels possible.
The Howard Gilman Foundation is a private foundation that Gilman established during his lifetime, Stephen Cropper, the treasurer of the foundation, said. The foundation supports organizations associated with Gilman's interests, including groups involved in the arts, nature conservation and cardiovascular disease, according to fundsnetservices.com.
"The Hopkins Center was the part of Dartmouth that Howard Gilman was most involved in," Moody said. "It tied in arts in a way that he liked to endorse."
Both the Howard Gilman Foundation and the Gilman family have been donated to the College in the past. The Gilman family created the Gilman Biomedical Center Fund and has contributed to scholarships at the College and at Dartmouth Medical School, while the foundation donated funds toward the construction of the Gilman Life Sciences Building and the Clafin Jewelry Studio at the Hop.
