Penn Law Launches the Levy Challenge
Several months after the Law School conducted a successful fund-raising challenge at the end of the last fiscal year, Paul Levy L’72 has issued one of his own.
Levy, chair of the Bold Ambitions campaign, has agreed to match all $50,000 gifts toward the new building, known as the Sansom Street Project. Under the terms of the Levy Challenge, each contribution will ultimately total $100,000. Donors would pay $10,000 a year for five years.
Alumni who meet the $50,000 challenge will have an opportunity to name a faculty office in the new building. Traditionally, naming of a faculty office requires a gift of $100,000.
Groundbreaking for the $33 million Sansom Street Project is scheduled for fall 2010. The 40,000-square-foot building will provide more space for program and faculty expansion, and will result in the finest urban law school campus in the country.
Last June, the Law School launched a challenge to close a gap in annual giving. It was wildly successful, raising $960,000 in one month. This new challenge comes at a critical stage in the Law School’s effort to fully fund the Sansom Street Project, and carries the potential to exceed our June challenge. At the same time, it aids the Bold Ambitions campaign, of which the new building is a part. The Law School has raised $144.5 million toward the $175 million goal.
“My challenge is designed to meet alumni halfway and create impetus for funding of the new building,” said Levy. “As campaign chairman and former chairman of the Board of Overseers, I understand how vital the Sansom Street Project is to Penn Law’s future and to the success of the campaign. That is why I am making such an open-ended commitment. I invite fellow alumni to follow my lead.”
Levy has been a stalwart supporter of Penn Law School, serving as the chairman of the Board of Overseers from 2001 to 2007. In addition, he established the Levy Scholars Program which annually gives a group of students the resources to pursue specialized study in law-related areas such as business, medicine, engineering and communications. Levy and his wife, Karen, also made a substantial gift in support of the renovation and restoration of Sharswood Hall, which is now the Levy Conference Center, home to scores of prominent events at the Law School.
For more information, or to make a gift, please contact Cricket Brosius at cbrosius@law.upenn.edu or 215-898-0860.
