Anonymous Donor Gives 300K in Prince's Honor

In honor of Charles, Prince of Wales, an anonymous donor gave the University a $300,000 gift to establish an endowed fund for international design, Graduate School of Design Dean Gerald M. McCue announced yesterday.

The disclosure came at a GSD-sponsored symposium entitled "The Future of the City: The Next Fifty Years," which the Prince attended along with about 200 guests. Charles has often expressed an interest in urban architecture and public planning.

About once every two years, a board of the members of the GSD faculty are to award the prize to a designer or group of designers for a finished urban design project.

"It is fitting that this prize is being established in the Faculty of Design because this is the first graduate school in the United States to establish advanced study in urban design for the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning," McCue said in a press statement.

President Derek C. Bok said in another release that by establishing this prize, the University "marks its commitment to advance the quality of urban design worldwide."

McCue said that he made the announcement at the symposium because it was "of immediate concern to those of us assembled here."

After McCue made the announcement, the audience of about 200 listened to four leading public planning professors discuss the future of the city and the role of urban designers in determining the prospect.

Charles only stayed at the seminar for about an hour before leaving to meet with students at a tea in his honor.