Recent Gifts and Their Impact
World-Class Dickens Collection
The Daniel and Alice Ryan Collection on Charles Dickens will be a transformative addition to WPI’s own Dickens collection, where it will significantly augment the Robert D. Fellman Dickens Collection and create a world-class resource for students, Dickens scholars, and readers. Robert D. Fellman's gift in 1995 included a complete collection of the original published versions of all of Dickens’s novels; the addition of the Ryan Collection will make WPI's one of the most comprehensive collections of letters written by members of Dickens’s inner circle.
Helen Shuster Digital Scholarship Lab
Library Director Emerita Helen Shuster helped usher in a digital age at Gordon Library. Now her gift has inspired WPI’s first digital scholarship lab, which opened in Fall 2018: a new space to teach and learn together about using transformative digital tools to address new questions and share knowledge in new ways.
Class of 1970 Café
In honor of their 40th reunion, the Class of 1970 made a generous gift that brought this popular café into the heart of the library in 2010. Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, the Class of 1970 Café is a favorite spot for a quick meal, a restful break, and a great cup of coffee. World newspapers and the café art gallery featuring art by students and faculty add to the café’s ambience. Students love it: “The café is the best place for breakfast and the staff are so friendly!” The Café is currently closed, with a planned reopening in 2022.
Lightpainting Honors Alumnus
“The Definition of Possible” is a gift from Phi Gamma Delta fraternity that honors Walter Knapp '38, a longtime advisor to the fraternity who was active on the President’s Council and was the first alumnus selected for WPI's Senior Honorary Society Skull. The first artwork of its kind on any Massachusetts campus, the Lightpainting installed in 2014 over the entrance to Gordon Library was created by Stephen Knapp, a Worcester native and Walter's son.
Class of 2015 Mosaic
The Class of 2015 raised funds to honor the memory of Patrick Degenhardt ’17, with an endowed scholarship. With class donations and a generous contribution from Patrick’s parents, Shelden and Cheryl Degenhardt, and his brother Adam ’15, they also donated an illuminated mosaic of the WPI seal inside the entrance of the Gordon Library, dedicated in memory of classmate John Kamau Muthee ’15, and designed and created by the Boston-based firm Artaic.