Marian University to invest in education with Lilly endowment grant
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMarian University in Indianapolis recently received $25 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the development of the Riverside Education Innovation District, or REID.
The university says it plans to use the expertise of the Klipsch Educators College “to drive significant improvements in educational attainment” on the city’s near northwest side.
The boundaries of the district are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Street to Lafayette Road to the east and west, and 16th Street to 38th Street to the north and south.
In an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick, Marian President Dr. Daniel Elsener said there are 12 K-12 schools within that area.
“We will walk alongside with them and the community, the parents, the teachers, the principals [and] the pastors, and we’re going to drive literacy and educational attainment up in this neighborhood,” Elsener said. “We’re going to show together…students can absolutely get excellent results, regardless of the socioeconomic conditions in which they live.”
The Lilly grant will partially fund the renovation of certain buildings on the former LaRue Carter hospital campus, where the REID will be based. The university will also relocate its education programs and offices to the district.
Elsener says Marian has worked with several of the schools in the area before, and the school has trained 5,500 teachers. The goal is to increase literacy and educational attainment through educational opportunities and community investment.
“As an anchor institution, we have the relationships and the know how to contribute to this neighborhood in unique ways. So the beauty of this kind of investment, it brings other investments, and you’re going to see a transformation accelerate and relationships deepen and outcomes that are dramatic.”
Marian said it also plans to get other investments from corporations and philanthropists as well as work with other entities to bring them into the neighborhood.
In total, the Lilly Endowment approved grants totaling more than $300 million to 13 colleges and universities in Indiana through its College and Community Collaboration earlier this month.