Couple makes $25 million gift to DePauw University

Friday, October 5, 2012

David and Suzanne Hoover gift will fund new dining hall, need-based scholarships

A $25 million gift from DePauw alumni David (left) and Suzanne Hoover will help fund a new dining hall on campus as well as need-based scholarships. DePauw President Brian Casey (right) made the announcement Thursday.

DePauw University President Brian W. Casey announced Thursday that DePauw University has received a $25 million gift from R. David and Suzanne A. Hoover (both '67) to help build a new dining hall and endow need-based scholarships.

The majority of the $25 million will provide the lead gift for the construction of the R. David and Suzanne A. Hoover Hall, to be located in the heart of campus between the Union Building and Burkhart Walk.

The remainder of the gift will provide $9 million to support the R. David and Suzanne A. Hoover Endowed Scholarship Fund for need-based financial aid.

"Our time at DePauw prepared us in ways we never could have imagined when we first stepped on campus," the Hoovers said in a statement. "We have gained so much from this place and from the people who have made it their home. This is our opportunity to further strengthen a college that has meant so much to us, and we hope it encourages others to step forward to support the extraordinary education provided on this campus."

The new hall will fulfill a core element of the university's Campus Master Plan, which was approved by the board of trustees in October of 2010 and called for the transformation of the campus core into a place of greater connection, contemplation, and creativity.

Hoover Hall will replace the current "Hub," a food-court-style dining hall that was originally intended to serve 350 students and now must accommodate more than 1,000 DePauw students daily. The new hall will serve as the primary dining space for first-year students and upper-class students living in university housing.

"On behalf the students, faculty and alumni of DePauw University, I extend my deepest gratitude to Dave and Suzanne for this gift, and for what it will mean to this campus," Casey said. "Their love for DePauw is palpable and their passion for its future is unmatched. Their legacy on this campus will forever be one marked by a commitment to students of DePauw."

In strengthening the Hoover Endowed Scholarship Fund for need-based scholarships, the Hoovers will reinforce an institutional legacy of access, a tradition established in the university's founding charter, which called for the university to benefit the youth of "every class of citizen."

This aerial view of a rendering of the DePauw campus plan, looking north from the Green Center, shows the site and a proposed design for Hoover Hall, located left center, directly west of the Memorial Union.

Their gift will support the university's goal of ensuring that generations of students--regardless of their family's financial means--will be able to attend DePauw.

"Dave and Suzanne represent the very best of DePauw," said Sarah R. Wallace '76, chair of the university's board of trustees. "As loyal alumni and philanthropists, they have been constant advocates for their alma mater. I am deeply grateful for their friendship and am moved by their dedication to this university. One simply cannot overstate the significance of the Hoovers' commitment to DePauw."

In addition to new dining spaces within Hoover Hall, additional fundraising efforts -- to take place in the coming months -- will provide the funds for a faculty dining room within Hoover Hall and for new meeting spaces for smaller gatherings of students and faculty.

Funds will also be sought to renovate and enhance spaces dedicated to student services and advising within the Memorial Union Building, which is now home to a merged office of professional advisors supporting off-campus study, Winter Term, career services and community service activities.

Dave Hoover, a past chair of the university's board of trustees, serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Ball Corporation. He also serves on the boards of Eli Lilly and Company, Energizer Holdings Inc. and Steelcase Inc. and is a director of Boulder Community Hospital and Children's Hospital Colorado.

In addition to receiving a bachelor's degree in economics from DePauw, he was awarded an MBA in finance and real estate from Indiana University and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business.

Suzanne Hoover, a former teacher and President of the Muncie Community School Corporation Board of Directors, received a bachelor's degree in history from DePauw and an MS in secondary education from Indiana University. She currently serves on the board of trustees for the University of Colorado Foundation, as an advisory board member for the University of Colorado School of Music and the President's Leadership Class, and as a member of the Development Board for the University of Colorado's School of Education.

She also serves as a director for Via Mobility, a Colorado non-profit organization. Continuing her commitment to education, she has served as a board member and president of Impact on Education, a Boulder-based education advocacy organization benefitting the Boulder Valley School District.

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  • Ifind it hard to believe that we have food banks growing empty, people can't make utility bills due to the trustee going broke.

    And I can't even pay rent due to medical bills so when I try to get help there is no money anywhere.

    But as usual there is money for the rich. Build a huge dining room so they can eat in style but throw the poor out into the street because they can't pay rent. Where is the help we need..

    -- Posted by BTruth1958 on Fri, Oct 5, 2012, at 8:59 AM
  • So let me get this straight. DePauw has wealthy enough graduates that one of them can drop $25 million for a dining hall but they just HAD to have those tax dollars from the stellar grant project to build a bookstore, Starbucks, new entryway, etc. Please explain to me again why our tax dollars are going to support the PRIVATE institution DePauw and other PRIVATE businesses through the facade projects. Hats off to these graduates nice to see them give back but this just further shows what a waste of tax payers money the stellar grant really is.

    -- Posted by hometownboy on Fri, Oct 5, 2012, at 11:24 AM
  • BTruth1958,

    Of course they could have given that money to those causes that you listed but they wouldn't get their names on a pretty building and their backs patted by all of their alumni friends.

    -- Posted by hometownboy on Fri, Oct 5, 2012, at 11:25 AM
  • Your tax dollars AREN'T going to support that private institution because it's a PRIVATE INSTITUTION. They function without your tax dollars, thus the name... "private institution."

    This isn't public money. This is money these two people earned and clearly invested, and then gave it to the school. It didn't come out of your pocket in any way.

    Now I know why Obama gets so many votes.

    -- Posted by conffool on Fri, Oct 5, 2012, at 6:16 PM
  • conffool,

    re-read my post. My point was that DePauw has a large donor base that they could have raised money from to build their bookstore and new campus entry. Instead they got a GOVERNMENT GRANT (AKA TAX MONEY) to do these projects. Those are my tax dollars and they have been wasted on an university which has more than ample resources to carry out their own projects. In the future I would suggest you actually read someones post before you comment on it so that you can avoid looking like a fool

    PS. I Didn't and will never vote for Obama

    -- Posted by hometownboy on Sat, Oct 6, 2012, at 12:11 PM
  • Then your issue is with congress, not DePauw. I would also argue they SEND a lot of revenue to the State and Federal government so they aren't completely off "the grid." DePauw has contributed far more to the federal, state, and local governments AND the Greencastle community, then they will ever take out in grants from their tax payments coming back.

    -- Posted by conffool on Mon, Oct 8, 2012, at 12:18 PM
  • conffool needs to go play in traffic or pay more attention in his Middle School social studies class.

    -- Posted by chaas013 on Tue, Oct 9, 2012, at 10:59 AM
  • CONFFOOL is right on target with the reason why people vote the way they do. Some believe that those who work their *sses off (and don't play the lottery, smoke, drink or otherwise WASTE their hard earned money) somehow owe it to those who won't give up ANY luxury in order to get ahead. How sad.

    Instead of wondering WHY the "rich" don't owe you a dime, how about going out and making your own money instead of sitting back waiting for that scratch off to "hit big".

    And before you assume I'm related to these people or DePauw in any form or fashion, or that I'm "rich", I'm not - but I am nearly debt free because I AM willing to sacrifice those luxuries NOW to be debt free in the FUTURE - help yourself, sacrifice FIRST before you ask for a hand, not a handout.

    -- Posted by Emmes on Thu, Oct 11, 2012, at 11:57 AM
  • And being grateful wouldn't hurt! Be grateful you have what you have NOW, because there are far too many people who don't even have that much!

    -- Posted by Emmes on Thu, Oct 11, 2012, at 11:59 AM
  • hometownboy: "Please explain to me again why our tax dollars are going to support the PRIVATE institution DePauw and other PRIVATE businesses through the facade projects."

    I am a private business. The facade of the building I occupy will be undergoing construction for the facade project soon. I do not own my building, nor do most of the businesses on the square own theirs. The benefit I'll receive will be windows that don't leak, a facade that doesn't look like it was built by a stoned, cross-eyed, hippy in the 60s, and - hopefully - more business, or at least more foot traffic due to a more attractive downtown. Unfortunately, it will likely be completed right when my lease is up.

    I see people complaining all the time on here about the lack of stores and restaurants in Greencastle. If you want more choices, you have to make the town attractive TO those businesses. That's the point of the Stellar Communities grant.

    Lastly, I have been told by several people that DePauw did NOT use the Stellar Communities resources in the remodel of the former Prevo's. Technically, they could have, and it would have been within their rights as downtown property owners.

    -- Posted by PlatyPius on Sat, Oct 13, 2012, at 12:08 PM
  • Everything in this town revolves around Depauw -right down to customer service with any business catering to the students-that is why so many local people go to Avon and Plainfield. Enuff said.

    -- Posted by peace2019 on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 6:46 AM
  • PlatyPius,

    Do you rent the building from the City or State Governemnt? No you rent it from a PRIVATE owner of the property and TAXPAYER dollars are going to support that PRIVATE owner. Also, don't know where you're getting your facts about DePauw not using Stellar Grant dollars but they are incorrrect (see following stories from the Banner)

    http://www.bannergraphic.com/story/1898673.html

    http://www.bannergraphic.com/story/1900430.html

    http://www.bannergraphic.com/story/1874305.html

    -- Posted by hometownboy on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 9:38 AM
  • Amen hometownboy. Just check out Plainfield. What a great addition that was, haha. It's only a pass thru. But I have to say that the stellar grant didn't come from taxpayers......it came from the money tree that's growing in the front lawn of the capital building in Indianapolis. On the serious side, I did not have a reason to go to the bookstore when it was located directly in the middle of campus. So..why would I go to the one downtown?

    -- Posted by putcocvb on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 3:38 PM
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