University of Michigan’s Judaic Studies center gets $1 million grant
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
ANN ARBOR, Michigan (JTA) — The University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies announced that it had received a new gift in excess of $1 million from local benefactors. The money will primarily be used to create a new full-time endowed professorship on the faculty.
The gift comes from the estate of Stuart and Barbara Padnos, and will endow a Stuart B. and Barbara Padnos Professorship in Jewish Thought, turning what had previously been a visiting faculty role into a full-time position. The original visiting professorship had been established in 1988 via an initial $250,000 donation from the Padnos family in honor of Stuart’s parents, Louis and Helen Padnos.
Stuart Padnos, who died in 2012, was a Michigan-based scrap metal artist, recycling industry businessman and son of a Russian Jewish emigre. His sculptures are a common sight in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as in his business headquarters in Holland, Michigan. The new donation, the exact amount of which was not disclosed by the university, was made by Stuart’s children, Doug, Daniel and Jeff.
The school’s Frankel Center was founded in 1972 and has proven a lucrative destination for major gifts. It was renamed in honor of major benefactors the Frankel family in 1988, following a $2 million gift from the family; the Frankels then donated an additional $20 million to the center in 2005 to establish a new institute within the center, the largest-ever gift to a Judaic studies department at an American university.
—
The post University of Michigan’s Judaic Studies center gets $1M grant appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
