Hamilton College to name arts building in honor of $10 million donors

CLINTON — Hamilton College announced it will name its upcoming theater and studio-arts building for Kevin and Karen Kennedy, who donated $10 million for the new project.

The honor is in recognition of the Kennedys’ lifetime donations to the college, including the gift for the project, Hamilton College said in a news release.

They are the lead donors in the nearly $47 million effort, the school said.

The Kevin and Karen Kennedy Center for Theatre and the Studio Arts will open in July with the formal dedication scheduled for Friday, Oct. 10.

Kevin Kennedy is a 1970 graduate of Hamilton College and a life trustee of the college, the school said. He served as chairman of Hamilton’s board of trustees from 1994 to 2002 when the college began planning for new arts facilities.

When he became board chairman, it was “clear” that the school’s arts facilities were antiquated, Kevin Kennedy said in the news release.

“I was in a production or two in Minor Theater in the late 1960s and it was pretty clear then that it was not a first-class theater. We learned from our experience with the sciences that new facilities attract more students. These new facilities will attract more students with interests in the arts and theatre,” Kennedy said.

Kevin Kennedy earned a bachelor’s degree in art from Hamilton College. He went on to earn a master’s in business administration at Harvard University.

He worked for more than three decades as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, retiring in 2011 as a member of the firm’s management committee, according to the Hamilton College release.

Kennedy currently serves as president and CEO of the Metropolitan Opera, an opera company based in New York City, the school said.

After graduating from Manhattanville College and Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, Karen Kennedy built a “thriving” pediatric practice in New York City, the news release stated.

Now retired, she serves as founding chair of the Children’s Board of Columbia at the Columbia University Medical Center and as co-chair of the American Fellows group of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the school added.

“Karen and Kevin Kennedy are discerning patrons of the arts and of Hamilton,” Joan Hinde Stewart, president of Hamilton College, said. “We are deeply grateful for their sustaining generosity and pleased that they are allowing us to name this beautiful new building in their honor.”

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com