Chatham University has received the most significant donation in its 139-year history.
The university has been granted the 388-acre Eden Hall Farm, the Gibsonia-based summer estate of the late Pittsburgh philanthropist Sebastian Mueller. The gift will allow Chatham to establish a new Eden Hall Farm Campus in Richland Township and expand its academic and environmental programs for 2,000 students and the North Hills community.
The donation from the
Eden Hall Foundation—a nonprofit that focuses on improving social welfare, health and education—includes agricultural and forest land, the Mueller's former home, a conference center with guest rooms and a dining facility, a barn and caretaker home, and several small structures.
Approximately ten times the size of Chatham's historic 39-acre Shadyside campus, Eden Hall Farm was created by Mueller—one
H.J. Heinz Company’s first executives—as a place of renewal for working women.
Chatham University president Esther L. Barazzone says the Eden Hall Farm campus—which will become Allegheny County’s largest university campus—will serve as a living laboratory for a broad range of studies. "As the alma mater of environmentalist Rachel Carson, we think that Eden Hall Farm will enable us to advance environmental education through specific additions to our curriculum," adds Barazzone.
The Eden Hall Farm campus will provide Chatham with new opportunities for growth at a time when the university’s 440 full- and part-time faculty and staff are outgrowing its Shadyside campus. In recent years, Chatham University—which offers 23 masters level and four doctoral level programs for women and men—has quadrupled its enrollment and launched online degree programs.
Writer:
Jennifer BaronSource: Esther L. Barazzone and Paul Kovach, Chatham University
Image courtesy Chatham University