Academy and Emmy Award winner Tom Hanks and Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of Orville and Wilbur Wright, will lead the largest fundraising campaign in Wright State University’s 47-year history. The university will announce it at a private event on Saturday evening.
The $150 million “Rise.Shine. The Campaign for Wright State University” will be formally announced by WSU President David Hopkins during an event at the Nutter Center that is expected to include almost 700 students, faculty, staff, donors and other guests.
Wright Lane will attend. Hanks is unavailable to attend the event because he is traveling between locations for a movie that is being directed by Steven Spielberg. He recorded a video message for the event.
“Wright State is a rising leader in 21st century higher education,” Hanks said, in a release from the university. “From groundbreaking research to world-class fine and performing arts, this university truly has a mission that matters.” Hanks was unable for an interview because of his filming schedule.
Hopkins said this week the university already has raised more than $106 million toward the campaign, which is the second in the school’s history. Campaign funds will be used for:
* scholarships and infrastructure to help students succeed;
* for recruiting and keeping outstanding faculty;
* and for “building the facilities that are state of the art for the 21st century model of higher education.”
“This one (campaign) is so important for the future of our students and what we are trying to do here at Wright State,” Hopkins said.
The focal point of the campaign and the largest part of the campaign will be dedicated to student success, Hopkins said. One of the challenges of higher education is creating an affordable, high-quality experience for students. The school will grow scholarships and create “the right kind of environment where we can really customize our student success plans so that each student counts.”
Part of the campaign funding is being used toward a $28 million renovation and expansion of the school’s creative arts center, said W. Stuart McDowell, chair and artistic director of the department of Theatre, Dance & Motion Pictures. The project will include relocating the motion pictures program from the basement of the creative arts center into new much larger space that will include a studio, digital classroom and editing suites. There will be a new ballet and pilates rooms and new movement/stage combat room and art gallery, McDowell said.
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Why is Hanks involved at Wright State?
The performing arts is part of the reason Hanks is connected to the campaign. Hanks has a long-standing relationship with McDowell and his wife, Gloria Skurski, who founded the Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York in 1977. Hanks auditioned and was cast as the lead in a production with the company. The role led to his landing an agent and ultimately moving to Los Angeles and being cast in Bosom Buddies, a sitcom, early in his career.
Additionally, Hanks has hired Wright State grads, including Beavercreek grad Erik Bork, who worked with Hanks on “From the Earth to the Moon” and “Band of Brothers,” an HBO mini-series that won seven Emmy Awards. The Tom Hanks Scholarship Fund was established in 2005 and awards four scholarships a year.
“We have world-class programs in the performing arts, theater, motion picture, dance and music and art,” Hopkins said. “We’re a center of excellence in Ohio for the arts. The facility we have there is a 1973 facility that we’ve tinkered with. Now we’re going to expand it. We’re going to modernize it. And the focus is on the learning areas of that project. It’s all about learning facilities for our students.”
Hopkins has met with Hanks on several occasions and has told him about Wright State — beyond the theater and arts programs and including the school’s work with veterans and the military — areas of personal interest to Hanks. The university’s mission resonates with Hanks, Hopkins said.
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