South Campus Residential Hall will be formally named as Renee Granville-Grossman Residential Commons due to a $44 million bequest from an alumna—the largest such donation in University history.
The University announced the change in an email to residents of College Housing on Thursday morning. The news comes amid the University’s Campaign for Inquiry and Impact, which has currently amassed $2.34 billion, more than halfway towards its record-setting goal of $4.5 billion. The five-year campaign began its public phase last October after launching its “quiet phase” in early 2012, and is the most ambitious fundraising campaign in the University’s history.
Renee Granville-Grossman (A.B. ’63) passed away in 2012. According to the email, her mother and her mother’s four siblings also graduated from UChicago. Granville-Grossman grew up in the South Shore and Kenwood neighborhoods before studying French, Russian, and linguistics at the University. After graduation, she taught at an elementary school, became a stockbroker, and developed an extensive art collection with her husband, real estate developer Leonard Granville-Grossman.
South Campus has housed more than 800 students since it opened in 2009. It and Max Palevsky Residential Commons will be joined by a third mega-dorm when Campus North is completed (it is slated to open in the fall of 2016). The name change will officially take place in a formal ceremony on February 25.
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