This post was updated July 31 at 12:30 a.m.
UCLA announced Monday it will rename the Humanities Building after one former and one current faculty member after receiving a $25 million donation in their name.
The university announced it will rename the building Renée and David Kaplan Hall after their son, Jordan Kaplan, his wife, Christine Kaplan, and Jordan’s longtime business partner, Ken Panzer, made the donation in their honor. Renée Kaplan was a clinical professor of psychology and David Kaplan is a professor of philosophy.
According to a university press release, the donation was the largest ever made to the UCLA humanities division. The university plans to directly allot $20 million to the philosophy department and use the other $5 million to provide seed funding for a planned endowment to support graduate studies in the humanities.
Funds will be used to attract and retain competitive faculty members and graduate students, according to the press release.
The donation is the second largest made to UCLA as a part of its Centennial Campaign, which recently surpassed its goal of raising $4.2 billion by December 2019, and comes two years after Renée, David, Jordan and Christine Kaplan donated funds to establish the Presidential Professor of Philosophy endowed chair.