U of C Business sChool gets $20M gift
Efforts to expand a University of Calgary business school have received a $20-million boost from a prolific city philanthropist.
The gift from energy sector and real estate investor Ron Mathison will help double the footprint of the Haskayne School of Business while bringing its students under one roof, said university president Elizabeth Cannon.
“The need for expanded space for the Haskayne School of Business has been recognized for a long time,” she said, noting some of the students study in other university buildings.
“This will also free up space on campus.”
It’s not Mathison’s first gift to the university. Among the donations have been a $10-million injection to what became the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education.
“Mr. Mathison recognizes the value of education that he’s had … it’s a tremendous example of generosity,” said Cannon.
The University of Calgary is pumping $50 million into the $90-million expansion. With Mathison’s gift, this leaves $20 million to raise to build the 110,000-squarefoot facility, to be constructed parallel to the school’s existing Scurfield Hall.
Its growth in enrolment, and the need to bring its students under one roof, make the expansion a top priority for the university, said Cannon.
Haskayne School of Business dean Jim Dewald echoed those sentiments, saying it’ll also modernize the school’s facilities, which date back to the 1980s.
“The new building will be very student focused,” he said. “It’ll give us active learning classrooms, we’ll be able to focus more on technology and provide more break-out rooms.”
Mathison said the gift was partly inspired by the enduring, brotherly friendship shared by his father and Richard Haskayne in Gleichen, where both men grew up.
“When I was made aware of the need for the building and knowing the life-long bond — they were like brothers — I thought there was a certain symmetry to having a Mathison building at the Haskayne school,” he said.
“And this city ’s been good to me.” The school’s focus on the business ethics of honesty and prudence, which reflects Haskayne’s mindset, also appealed to him, said Mathison.
The university and Mathison said they hope others are inspired by the gift to come forward and help close the project’s funding gap.
The building is scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2022 and be ready for students in the fall of that year.
It’ll better enable the Haskayne school to accommodate an expected 4,000 students, up from the current 3,700, said Dewald.
The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology has also benefited from Mathison’s philanthropy.