Correction: The Windgate Charitable Foundation in Siloam Springs contributed more than $2 million to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock during a 20-year span prior to a grant announced Monday. The donation amount was incorrect in this article.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will open a new visual arts building in 2017 thanks to a $20.3 million grant, the school announced Monday.
The grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation, based in Siloam Springs, will fund the entire project. It marked the largest donation to a specific academic program at the 11,645-student university and was second overall to the $22.4 million gift that Jackson T. Stephens gave for the center in his name. Stephens died in July 2005 before the athletics center opened.
"It is a big gift, and this gift will enable us to build a 71,000-square-foot facility that will bring together under one roof the applied-design program, now located at University Plaza at the south end of campus, and the visual arts program in the current Fine Arts Building," UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson said. "A gift of this magnitude will help the already outstanding visual and applied-design programs of this institution reach new levels of excellence, influence and significance."
The gift arrives as the university is planning some $2.4 million in budget cuts to its five colleges and nonacademic units during a years-long restructuring process. That process comes against a background of declining enrollment and the resulting loss of tuition and fee revenue. Most of the general and college-specific cuts will take effect July 1, prompting officials to seek external funding to keep some programs and services intact.
'The arts are valued'
The Windgate Foundation first set the wheels in motion for the visual arts building in 2012 when it gave the university a $70,000 grant for a feasibility study. For the study, officials looked at renovation of current facilities as opposed to new construction, at possible locations of a new building and at the possibility of additional funding, said the foundation's executive director, John Brown III.
"We've been pleased with UALR's commitment to supporting the program and providing the current facilities for applied arts," Brown said. "The arts are valued."
The new, 71,636-square-foot building will be open in fall 2017 at the corner of 28th Street and East Campus Drive. Currently, the area is somewhat wooded and on a slope.
"The whole point and purpose of this building is to consolidate three separate facilities that the university is currently using for the fine arts program," said John Greer, an architect with Little Rock-based WER Architects/Planners, which the university has retained. "We are doing everything that we can do to preserve the trees and the wooded area."
Greer unveiled the design concepts for the new building as part of the announcement of the gift at the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall as a handful of students sitting in the front row of marveled at the facility.
Kenneth Guthrie, 21, a junior majoring in photography, said he had heard murmurs of the new building but didn't realize the scope of the plans until Monday.
"Honestly, it's a very great thing," Guthrie of Cabot said. "It's important to have all the creative people together" to feed off one another.
Now students taking different fine arts courses, at times, have to go from the south end to the campus all the way to the northern side, he said. And those students are usually hauling more things for classes, he added.
Guthrie said he plans to graduate in fall 2016, before the new building is to open. But, he said, he thought others -- especially newer students -- will be excited.
"It's inspiring," he said.
The initial design plans show different architecture for the different UALR programs. For example, the area for the applied-design programs -- sculpture, ceramics, metalsmithing, metalwork, three-dimensional design -- has a more industrial look to it and is separated from the other arts programs in the buildings, Greer said. The area for the visual arts programs is "more refined" and oriented to the east and west to take advantage of the natural light, he said.
All the art department's programs will be consolidated in the new building, and the current Fine Arts Building will be left behind. The new building will also house two art galleries that will showcase permanent and temporary exhibits, along with an 80-seat lecture hall and reception venue on the ground floor. The university has planned a sculpture garden outside one of the two main entrances, Greer said.
The Windgate connection
Monday's announcement is a culmination of nearly two decades of partnership between UALR and the Windgate Foundation.
Brown, who has led the foundation since its 1993 inception, is a former state senator and the former president of John Brown University, the Siloam Springs-based private Christian college that his grandfather founded.
The Windgate Foundation got its start from an endowment made up of Wal-Mart stock belonging to Dorothea Hutcheson of Fort Smith. In 1978, Wal-Mart bought out Hutcheson Shoe Co. in Fort Smith, and Dorothea Hutcheson's son, Bill Hutcheson Jr., became a vice president of Wal-Mart.
Dorothea Hutcheson died in 1996, but the endowment kept growing. In 2013 alone, the foundation had a total of $174 million in assets and gave a total of $41 million in contributions, gifts and grant aid, according to an IRS Form 990.
The foundation has doled out funds nationwide and in the state. It has helped fund Arkansas A+ Schools, a research-based network that supports the integration of arts in teaching. Brown is a backer of arts integration in science, technology, engineering and math, saying that it leads to more student engagement and a better understanding of concepts.
According to the IRS form, the foundation in 2013 gave some $584,527 to Crystal Bridges for distance-learning projects; $3.16 million to the Arkansas Arts Center, mostly for the Museum School Expansion Building Fund, but also for the one of the exhibition series and for drawing and contemporary craft curator salaries; $1.7 million to JBU for various items, including scholarships, seminars and retreats; and $151,335 to UALR's art department.
The foundation's partnership with UALR goes as far back as 1995 with a $40,000 donation for a sculpture project, UALR's art department Chairman Tom Clifton said. The groups have worked together over the years, including the start-up of the applied-design program in 2002.
"It's the only program of its kind in this region, so it's a groundbreaker," Clifton said. "And this building will pull this altogether."
Through the years, the foundation has also given scholarships to arts students at the university and helped with an artists-in-residence program. To date, the foundation's contribution to UALR is more than $2 billion, Clifton said.
In fall 2016, the university will begin offering a master's degree in 3-D studies, he said. Officials are also developing employment-oriented certificate programs in furniture design, graphic design and photography. They are also working to create graduate programs in advanced visualization techniques.
"Our vision is to create an accessible destination center for students intent on pursuing lifelong careers in visual arts, giving them unique, valuable experiences that will serve them for a lifetime," Clifton said. "We appreciate the confidence that the Windgate Foundation has placed in us."
Brown said he looked forward to the program growth at UALR's art department. When the foundation first began polling the community on the new building, he said, the work at UALR was not well-known in the community.
"It was clear we had some work to do," he said. "Now we think people will sit up and notice."
Metro on 05/12/2015