News Briefs

Vet school gets $10M donation for building

Wharton alumnus Vernon Hill and his wife Shirley have donated $10 million to Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, President Amy Gutmann announced yesterday.

The gift will be used to complete the Vernon and Shirley Hill Pavilion, a new building in the Vet School slated to open in the fall of 2006.

The building will be five floors high and will contain surgery centers and cage space for small animals.

The Hill Pavilion will be the first new Vet School building in Philadelphia in the last 25 years.

"Dean [Alan] Kelly and his staff are on a never-ending mission to advance the teaching, care and research goals of a great institution," Vernon Hill said in a statement. "We are pleased to have our name associated with both the University and the School of Veterinary Medicine.

The gift is the largest ever received from a living donor by the Vet School.

-- Mara Gordon

Lower Schuylkill gets new brand, regatta

The Schuylkill River Development Corporation unveiled the "Schuylkill Banks" in a ceremony yesterday afternoon.

The event is just one marker in what officials are saying will be 40-year process to transform the area into an outlet for recreation and community events.

It served specifically to introduce the term "Schuylkill Banks," as well as to promote the first Schuylkill River rowing regatta on the lower portion of the river in October.

SRDC CEO Joe Syrnick said that despite some unwanted rain, the event was well-received.

Syrnick said that much of the attention given to the development of the river has focused on capital investments and the physical reconstruction of the area.

He said that yesterday's event deviated from this norm because it was about the identity of the area.

The SRDC has ongoing plans to landscape the Schuylkill Banks and extend bike trails to Bartram's Garden, south of campus, by 2008.

-- Alanna Kaufman

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