Grant to Complete Science Renovations

The Fletcher Jones Foundation has awarded a $750,000 grant to Westmont for the second phase of renovation of Whittier Science Building, including classroom, laboratory, and storage spaces. The next phase of work will take place during the summer, so Whittier will be completely renovated by fall 2018. In 2014, the Fletcher Jones Foundation awarded a $750,000 grant for the first phase of improvements inside Whittier, which opened in 1985.

“The grants from the Fletcher Jones Foundation have transformed the college’s ability to recruit top students and offer innovative and engaging collaborative learning experiences,” president Gayle D. Beebe says. “The renovations will equip science majors to work in the laboratory and conduct independent research, helping them cultivate the scientific reasoning, collaboration, and communication skills required for success in the sciences.”

Since 1984, Fletcher Jones Foundation has given Westmont more than $4.6 million.

“Undergraduate research is a hallmark of a Westmont education,” says provost Mark Sargent. “Students gain extensive lab and fieldwork experience through teaching laboratories and a variety of off-campus opportunities. The college also sponsors two student research symposiums each year, where students report their findings.”

In 2012, Westmont installed a new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer in Whittier thanks to a $383,000 grant from the Fletcher Jones Foundation. The 400-MHz spectrometer allows researchers to peer into the molecular world and determine the structure of molecules.

In 2007, the Fletcher Jones Foundation awarded $1 million toward the creation of the college’s first endowed chair in the social sciences, which rotated to Chandra Mallampalli, professor of history, in 2018.

Westmont received a $500,000 gift from Fletcher Jones Foundation in 2005 for the Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts, promoting the continued vitality of the liberal arts tradition in American higher education.

The Fletcher Jones Foundation gave $500,000 in 2003 for new science equipment for Winter Hall for science and mathematics and to upgrade the Westmont Observatory.

The Fletcher Jones Foundation was established in 1968 by Fletcher Jones, cofounder of Computer Sciences Corporation, a worldwide leader in business technology. Following his untimely death in 1972, the foundation received the bulk of his estate. The primary mission of the foundation has been and continues to be the support of private, independent degree-granting institutions of higher education in California.