About / May 10 / Gevritz School receives $500,000 Kresge Grant

May 25, 2010
For immediate release

The Gevirtz School at UC Santa Barbara receives $500,000 grant from Samuel Kresge Foundation for new Education Building

The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education (GGSE) at UC Santa Barbara has met the conditions of a Kresge Foundation $500,000 challenge grant to help complete construction and assist in fund raising for a new facility that houses the school and its clinical outreach programs. The challenge required that the GGSE raise an additional $1.7 million in private support toward the $8 million capital project. This is the first time the prestigious national foundation has awarded a grant to UCSB.

“We are very grateful to the Kresge Foundation for their faith in our work,” says Jane Close Conoley, Gevirtz School Dean. “Their half million dollar challenge inspired many to give to the Gevirtz School and allows us to reduce the financial liability of our new (and wonderful) building. The Kresge Foundation investment in our building helps us provide access and excellence for all students.”

The new building greatly enhances the Gevirtz School’s mission to become a hub of scholarship, research, and service, and a national leader in developing the expertise to solve the most serious educational problems. The School prepares teachers, educational researchers, psychologists, and school leaders who are committed to improving public education –– and thus every child’s experience in the classroom and beyond –– through research and collaboration.

In awarding the grant Kresge Foundation President Rich Rapson wrote, “We are delighted to make our first ever grant to the University of California Santa Barbara, particularly to the Gevirtz School of Education’s new LEED Silver building….UCSB has done an enviable job of providing very good access to low-income and minority students while offering excellent undergraduate and graduate educational opportunities.”

The new building, open since fall quarter 2009, features academic and research centers, smart classrooms, clinical and conference spaces, faculty offices, a lobby and atrium, a fourth-floor balcony and patio, and a learning garden. It is also home to expanded, technologically updated spaces for the Koegel Autism Center; the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Center for Asperger Research; the Hosford Counseling and Psychological Services Clinic; and the Psychology Assessment Center, thereby enabling the School to extend its outreach into the community.

The Kresge Foundation supports communities in the United States and around the world by strengthening the nonprofit organizations that serve them. The foundation was established by Sebastian Spering Kresge in 1924 “for the promotion of human progress.” Over the years, the foundation has helped build the nation’s nonprofit infrastructure –– libraries, community centers, schools, hospitals, art museums, food banks, and countless other facilities.

Historically, the foundation’s challenge grant program has funded nonprofit organizations that are engaged in capital campaigns to raise private funds in support of institutional growth through the construction of new facilities, and other similar projects.

[Jane Close Conoley is available for interviews; contact George Yatchisin at 805 893 5789]
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The Gevirtz School at UC Santa Barbara receives $500,000 grant from Samuel Kresge Foundation for new Education Building