Alum donates $5 million to SBPM

GW officials announced Saturday that Henry “Ric” Duques and his wife, Dawn, donated $5 million for the new business school building, set for completion in fall 2004. The building will be named after the Duqueses.

School of Business and Public Management Dean Susan Phillips announced the donation at the school’s graduation to a standing ovation. Duques, who spoke at the ceremony in the Smith Center, received a bachelor of arts degree in business administration from GW in 1965 and a master’s degree in 1969.

Duques is the chairman of e-payment company First Data Corporation.

The $45 million facility, which will be built on the parking lot between Madison and Funger halls on 22nd Street, will be attached to Funger Hall. It will include 120,000 square feet of new high-tech classroom and office space and a 100-space parking garage under the building, according to previous Hatchet reports.

Groundbreaking for the new building, which will be known as Ric and Dawn Duques Hall, is scheduled for this fall.

The business school is currently housed in the Hall of Government and Monroe Hall. Built in 1937, the adjacent buildings no longer have the capacity to accommodate the needs of the growing school.

“There are student services we could not accommodate at our current level in order to be a strong business school,” Phillips said in a May 13 Hatchet article.

SBPM junior David Waterman said he was glad to hear alumni support the business school.

“It is a great sign that alumni realize the potential of business school students and want to invest in SBPM to make it better,” he said.

Junior Jordan Greenblatt said he is not bothered by the fact that the building will be completed after he graduates. He said it will benefit students and increase the value of his degree.

Duques is a member of GW’s Board of Trustees and received a GW Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award in 1993.

-Jonah Zinn

Spherical sculpture finds home on Kogan Plaza

University officials placed a 12-foot spherical sculpture, titled “Suffusion,” on Kogan Plaza last Monday after artist Arthur Carter donated it to the University.

GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said he asked Carter, whom he met at a dinner party in Connecticut 15 years ago, to donate a piece of art a few years ago after viewing one of his gallery shows in New York.

Carter said he and Trachtenberg felt “Suffusion” “would aesthetically and harmonically work (best) on the campus.”

Trachtenberg said a 6-foot version of the piece was too small for Kogan Plaza, so the 12-foot variation was chosen in “GW blue.”

Although some students said the sculpture takes up too much space in the grassy area, officials said the center of campus was their first choice for the display.

“If you’re walking along 21st Street, it’s a wonderful surprise as you come around to Kogan Plaza,” Trachtenberg said.

“I thought the space there along (Lisner Auditorium’s) wall was a very gracious space,” Carter said. “A lot of both students and faculty go through this space a lot.”

Roger Lyons, executive director of facilities, said “most people commented favorably (about the sculpture).”

Carter also said the space was “kind of open,” complimenting the definition of the piece’s title, which means “spread over or through in the manner of fluid or light,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

The steel and bronze piece weighs two tons.

Lyons said the piece and base took half a day to move because of its weight.

He said the piece will probably be permanent, but noted that “permanent is a relative thing,” estimating it will be here for at least fifty years.

Carter also has pieces on display on Park Avenue in New York City and the Piltzer Gallery in Paris.

New medical school gate to represent education

Students were redirected across the I Street mall adjacent to Ross Hall and the Foggy Bottom Metro stop last week as construction workers put up GW’s fourth symbolic gate.

Though the crosswalk fully reopened this weekend, the gate is scheduled for dedication in mid-August in conjunction with the opening of the new GW hospital, said Linda Dent-Brown, director of publications for the Medical School.

Dent-Brown said the construction has been going on for a “few weeks” and “(the workers) have been moving at an extraordinary pace.”

Officials said the gate is a symbol of education.

Dent-Brown said Alice and Louis Chiu donated the funds for the gate this year. The gate will be named the Sheen Hok Gate to honor the Sheen Hok Foundation, a charitable organization the Chius founded to support elderly people and victims of natural disasters.

University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg awarded the Chius the GW President’s Medal last year.

Journalist Walter Cronkite, Israeli statesman Abba Eban and former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev are among the recipients of the prize, the highest honor awarded by the University president.

Brown said the gate’s inscription will read, “Learning is using in a proper way.”

The three other gates on campus are the Professors’ Gate, Trustees’ Gate and America’s Gate on three sides of Kogan Plaza.

Trachtenberg said all the gates serve a similar purpose.

“A good frame enhances the picture,” Trachtenberg said.

Former NBC news man joins SMPA team

Former NBC News correspondent John Dancy will be the fall 2002 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellow.

Dancy will offer a semester-long seminar called “Foreign Correspondents and Foreign Policy.”

Professor and School of Media and Public Affairs Interim Director Jarol B. Manheim wrote in an e-mail that all fellows are “required to make a public presentation on campus during the semester of their appointment.”

“Sometimes the project is to work on a book, sometimes to lead a series of workshops or brownbag (lunches),” Manheim said.

Manheim wrote that the Shapiro Fellow is chosen by a committee of SMPA faculty and is “typically a prominent professional in some field of media, politics (or) public affairs.”

Officials said they are excited to have Dancy, who has taught at Brigham Young and Duke universities, join the SMPA.

“He’s a great person and I can’t wait until he comes,” Media Specialist Eric Solomon said. “The guy’s just so knowledgeable and nice, and he really likes to get involved with the students.”

Dancy had a thirty-year career at NBC News, where he covered D.C. beats and served twice as a foreign correspondent. He gave the United States its first view of the Iran-Contra affair after he disclosed a secret but unclassified Senate Intelligence Committee report.

Dancy has also received honors from Columbia University and Harvard University.

Last year’s Shapiro fellows were CNN Political Editor Carin Dessauer in the fall and political public relations expert Peter Hannaford in the spring.

-Julie Gordon