Board chairman, President to recognize philanthropy at Rockefeller dinner event

Chairman of the Board of Trustees James Crown and President Randel, on behalf of the University, will honor the inaugural members of the Harper Society Founders Circle on Friday, April 23. As part of the University’s third Chicago Convenes event, a dinner will be held in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel to recognize alumni, friends of the University, and corporations and foundations who have made cumulative gifts totaling $1 million or more.

“This event also is a celebration of the continuing success of the Chicago Initiative and surpassing the $1 billion mark earlier this year,” Crown said. The Chicago Initiative is the University’s $2 billion capital campaign, the largest fund-raising effort by far in the University’s history and among the largest undertaken by a U.S. university.

“It is important for the University to recognize and celebrate the many alumni and friends who have helped bring us to the first $1 billion in the Initiative,” added Randy Holgate, Vice-President for Development and Alumni Relations. “Their generosity and commitment will serve as a model to inspire others as we move forward.”

During a special ceremony, Randel, Crown and Andrew Alper, Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees, will induct new members into the Founders Circle, and each individual will be recognized for his or her long-standing commitment to the University with a bronze statue of the University’s first president, William Rainey Harper.

In 1889, John D. Rockefeller committed $600,000 to found the University, with a challenge to President Harper and Chicago’s civic leaders to raise an additional $400,000. Prominent Chicagoans of the time, including Martin Ryerson, George Walker, Sidney Kent and Marshall Field, rose to the challenge, and an inaugural gift of $1 million was established. Rockefeller himself would provide $35 million more in gifts to the University between 1892 and 1910.

Randel also will confer the University of Chicago Medal on Marion Musser Lloyd, a Life Trustee, for distinguished service of the highest order. “Mrs. Lloyd has been a tireless volunteer and generous supporter of the University for more than five decades,” Randel said.

Beginning in 1960, when Lloyd became one of the founding members of the University Women’s Board, her numerous contributions to the life of the University have included leadership of an initiative in the early 1970s to create a home for Court Theatre.

A Vassar College graduate and a lifelong philanthropist with wide-ranging interests, Lloyd is the widow of Glen Lloyd, a graduate of the Law School and a partner in the Chicago law firm now named Bell, Boyd & Lloyd. The University of Chicago Medal was established in 1976, and only nine other individuals have received the award, including Lindy Bergman, Gaylord Donnelley, William Graham, Irving Harris, Florence Lowden Miller, John Nef, Max Palevsky, and Joseph and Helen Regenstein.

The dinner will cap a full day of events that will begin with welcoming remarks by Randel and Edgar Jannotta, Chairman of the Chicago Initiative. Following these remarks will be faculty-led panels, a tour of new campus facilities, participation in classes in the College, neighborhood tours and a reception at the Oriental Institute.