Beal Endows Directorship of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum

March 31, 2008

Rollins College is pleased to announce a gift of $1 million to endow the Directorship of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum. Rollins graduate Bruce A. Beal donated the funds for the directorship in honor of the College's Class of 1958 on the occasion of its 50th class reunion, which was celebrated this past weekend. Museum Director Luanne McKinnon will now be known as the Bruce A. Beal Director of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum.

“The background I received in fine arts at Rollins was the beginning of a lifelong journey and quest in collecting modern and contemporary art, which has enriched my life for over 50 years,” said Beal. “I hope this gift may help future students explore and enjoy the fine arts as much as I have.”

Beal, who lives in Palm Beach, Fla., Boston and Woods Hole, Mass., is the chairman of The Beal Companies, a real estate investment and development firm in Boston that has been in his family since the 1880s. The Beal family has a long tradition of philanthropy. Together with his brother, Robert, the Beals have endowed numerous positions in the arts such as a chair at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a curatorship creating the Department of Contemporary Art at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The Beal family has also provided endowments for positions in the healthcare industry, such as a chair at the Harvard School of Public Health and the first master clinician chair at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, one of the Harvard affiliated teaching hospitals.

"We look for areas where our giving may make a difference,” said Beal. “I hope that this endowment will lead others to recognize and, therefore, support the outstanding education and programs at Rollins."

This brings the total number of endowed chairs at Rollins to 33.