Toyota Gift Supports Manchester Center
The Jean Childs Young Intercultural Center is expected to be complete in the fall of 2018. (rendering courtesy Manchester University)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowManchester University says a $250,000 donation from Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) will support the new Jean Childs Young Intercultural Center on the North Manchester campus. The university says the multipurpose space inside the facility will be known as the "Toyota Round" in recognition of the gift.
Manchester says the Toyota Round will serve as a campus focal point for multicultural discussions and programming for students, community and business leaders from throughout the region.
"We are deeply grateful for this donation from Toyota Motor North America," said Manchester President David McFadden. "The Toyota Round will be a valuable resource for our students as well as the communities that surround us. The circular design of the Toyota Round evokes the symbolic importance in many cultures of gathering in a round when discussing difficult issues. It is welcoming, inclusive and non-hierarchical."
The university says work has already begun on the site of the 5,000-square-foot facility, though the official groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for February 1. The project is expected to be complete in the fall of 2018.
The center is named after Jean Childs Young, a 1954 graduate of Manchester, who worked with her husband Andrew Young, a former U.S. Ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement. She was appointed chair of the U.S. Commission of the International Year of the Child by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and served as a Manchester University Trustee from 1975 to 1979.
"This project is especially timely for us since the University is holding a number of events in 2018 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.," McFadden said. "Dr. King’s last speech on a college campus, titled, ‘The Future of Integration’ was delivered at Manchester on February 1, 1968, just a few months before he was slain."