CAMPAIGN UPDATE
Leonard Miller '51
photo by Sabin Gratz '98
$5 million gift to Holocaust Studies
“Growing up in Burlington’s Old North End, I would never have dreamed that some day I could do something meaningful to assure that the horrors of the Holocaust would not be forgotten,” says Leonard Miller ’51. “By supporting UVM’s Center for Holocaust Studies, Carolyn and I are very pleased that we’re able to take a substantial step in that direction and help the University at the same time.”
It was a dream come true for UVM’s Center for Holocaust Studies—a $5 million gift from Leonard and Carolyn Miller to renovate Billings Hall as a permanent home for what will henceforth be named the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies and to endow two new professorships in Holocaust studies. Miller announced the gift when he returned to campus in June to celebrate his 55th class reunion.
The Billings renovation also will provide a home for the University’s Center for Research on Vermont and for the UVM Libraries’ Special Collections. Billings Hall, dedicated in 1885, was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, the foremost architect of his day, as the University library.
Leonard Miller is a retired Florida real estate developer and former mayor of Indian Creek Village, Florida, and Carolyn is a realtor specializing in upscale Florida properties. The Millers have been strong supporters of the Center for Holocaust Studies in the past, having established the Miller Endowment, which provides faculty support and funds the Miller Symposium in Holocaust Studies every other spring at UVM. Miller says his commitment to Holocaust Studies stems in part from his belief that the Holocaust would have changed the course of his family’s life had his parents not emigrated to the United States before the Nazis came to power in Germany.
“We are so very grateful to Lenny and Carolyn Miller for this extraordinary gift,” said UVM President Daniel Mark Fogel. “Thanks to their thoughtful and purposeful philanthropy, the University of Vermont will stand even taller among the handful of institutions worldwide known for the excellence of their teaching and scholarship surrounding one of the defining events in human history.”
UVM’s Center for Holocaust Studies was established to celebrate and perpetuate the achievement and legacy of Raul Hilberg, author of The Destruction of the European Jews, widely regarded among scholars as a seminal work in the field of Holocaust studies. Hilberg taught at UVM from 1956 to 1991 and initiated its Holocaust Studies program. The Center offers an academic minor in Holocaust studies and promotes knowledge of the Holocaust through lectures, courses, seminars, visits to local schools, and cultural events on campus.
$1 million for Plant science building
The new plant science building planned as the next major capital construction project at the University of Vermont is a step closer to reality thanks to a $1 million pledge from the Lintilhac Foundation of Shelburne, Vermont.
The building is a top University priority for new academic space to replace outmoded laboratories and classrooms in the departments of Plant Biology and Plant & Soil Science. Currently on the drawing boards is a $40 million, 83,000-square-foot building to be sited on the eastern edge of campus north of Main Street. To date, a total of $8 million in state capital appropriations has been earmarked for the project.
“We are deeply grateful to the Lintilhacs for their support of this essential project,” said Rachel K. Johnson, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “I am convinced that a new era of scholarship in plant biology at the University of Vermont is imminent given the caliber of our scientists and the possibilities presented by this new facility.”
Crea and Philip Lintilhac are both graduates of the University of Vermont, and Philip Lintilhac has been a member of the UVM botany faculty for three decades. Philip was recently honored with the prestigious Centennial Award of the Botanical Society of America as one of the nation’s leading plant scientists. “It’s important that the University have a strong presence in basic plant science,” he says. “UVM already has one of the strongest plant biology programs of its size in the country, and we hope this gift will help to create a facility that builds further on that strength.”
Crea and Philip have a son, Will, who is a freshman in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources this fall.It's Brennan's Pub and Bistro
With the Dudley H. Davis Center continuing to take shape as what will be a signature facility for the campus, one of its most eagerly anticipated amenities has remained nameless—until now, that is.
Thanks to a generous gift from Robert ’83 and Carolyn Brennan ’82, generations of UVM students will come to know Brennan’s Pub and Bistro as their favorite local hangout. “It’s very exciting,” says Rob of the couple’s most recent gift. “We had seen the artist’s rendering and liked it. We knew we wanted to do something to help with the student center, and besides, the name just kind of fits.”
This is the second gift from the Brennans (no relation to UVM’s recently retired coaching legend Tom Brennan) during the ongoing Campaign for the University of Vermont. Just a year ago, the couple established the Brennan Family Scholarship Fund to benefit students in the UVM Honors College. “We love the school, we want to see it prosper, and we’re fortunate enough to be in a position to help,” says Rob, who is Global Head of the Real Estate Finance Group at Credit Suisse in New York.
When Brennan’s opens in the Davis Center next fall, students will have what they have so long said to be lacking on the UVM campus—a place to kick back into the wee hours, check out the live entertainment, grab a late-night snack, and enjoy each other’s company in a relaxed and convivial setting.Charting our progress
through September 30, 2006
(for UVM staff)