For a price, leave your mark on Perelman Quad

A World Wide Web-based funrasing campaign details prices for various spaces around campus. Attention University alumni: If you act fast, you can use the Internet to put your mark on Penn. As part of a campaign to raise funds for the Perelman Quad project -- incorporating the renovation of Irvine Auditorium and College, Houston, Logan and Williams halls -- the Office of Development and Alumni Relations has been advertising donation opportunities on the World Wide Web. The Perelman Quad Gift Page (http://alumni.dev.upenn.edu/alumni/pq/pqdescri.html) targets young, Internet-familiar alumni with details of the five buildings' funding needs. Maps and schematics, accompanied by price lists, detail what the University has available. The donations will supplement a $20 million donation from University Trustee Ronald Perelman and a $7.5 million donation from Trustee Steve Wynn. But buyer beware. The Web page has not been updated since last June, so many areas besides those marked "reserved" are already spoken for, according to Joanne Hanna, who is in charge of development for the Perelman Quad. Hanna added that the fundraising campaign is already only half a million dollars short of its $36 million goal. Of the five buildings, Houston Hall, with its numerous student offices and meeting rooms, provided the greatest number of opportunities to sponsor and name rooms -- but only the $2 million Hall of Flags and the $1 million auditorium remain unclaimed. Bodek Lounge sold for $2 million, while the third floor meeting rooms, such as the Smith-Penniman and Bishop-White rooms, went for only $25,000 to $50,000 each. Nearly all the donation requests for Logan Hall have also been filled, except for some School of Arts and Sciences graduate spaces. But the priciest area available for sponsorship -- the $5 million Irvine Auditorium Concert Hall -- is still up for grabs. Since many of the rooms offered to donors already bear the names of past donors or University figures, the University will try to preserve the original names and plaques, while somehow honoring new donors, Vice President for Development Virginia Clark said. So it's still not clear whether familiar spots like Bodek Lounge will lose their old names. "Clearly, we have to be thoughtful about that because history and tradition is very important here," she said. "But at the same time you have to reward the generosity of our donors." While the Web page has attracted positive feedback, it has not yet attracted any potential donors by itself. The success of the fundraising efforts have thus far been due to the brochures mailed to alumni. But the fundraising has gone much quicker than predicted, Clark said. She attributed the rapid success of the campaign to the many donations from class gifts, including two gifts of $1 million from the classes of 1966 and 1967 to renovate the Houston Hall lobby and reading room. A $2 million gift from 1966 College graduate David Silfen will be used to build a new student study center addition to Williams Hall, while an anonymous gift of $1.5 million will provide half of the $3 million needed to renovate the College Hall Admissions Suite. University Trustee Robert Fox donated $500,000 to cover the costs of the art gallery on the ground floor of Logan. And Elizabeth Woodward, a member of the Houston family which made the original donation to build Houston Hall in 1896, gave $500,000 to be used for the building's restoration. Perhaps the donation most significant to current University students is the nearly $100,000 from friends and family of Emily Sachs, a member of the Class of 1998 who died during her freshman year. The gift, which will be supplemented by a $10,000 to $15,000 gift from this year's seniors, will cover the construction of the Emily Sachs Memorial Rehearsal Room in Irvine Auditorium. Although the Web fundraising effort has yet to see tangible results, Clark said she feels it is important to set up a way to reach many of the younger alumni easily and quickly. The campaign does have its detractors. Student Activities Council President Steve Schorr, a Wharton senior, said that while Web publicity can only help fundraising efforts, it is wrong to offer to change areas that are already named. But College senior S. Morgan Friedman, who works in University archives and researches Penn history, said he is not concerned about the historical impact of renaming rooms after new donors, explaining that "University landscapes, like those in cities, are constantly changing."

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