Mort Mandel, President Barbara R. Snyder and Dean Grover “Cleve” Gilmore at the Mandel School “wall-breaking” event.
Case Western Reserve has hosted plenty of ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings during the Forward Thinking capital campaign, but this week marked a new kind of ceremony to kick off construction: the hammer swing.
As more than 135 guests watched, 93-year-old Mort Mandel (CWR ’13) pounded on a faux brick wall to signal the start of a $9.2 million renovation of the school that bears his family’s name. Joined by Case Western Reserve President Barbara R. Snyder and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Dean of Applied Social Sciences Grover “Cleve” Gilmore, Mandel’s efforts revealed a rendering illustrating the results of the project.
The project involves just over half of the building’s 63,594 square feet—including all of the classrooms and the relocation of the school’s social work library—as well as the addition of 3,700 square feet. The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation gave the school a naming gift before the completion of the original building in 1990, and also served as the lead donor for this update of the space. The $4.95 million lead gift was part of an $8 million award made in 2013—one that also endowed the dean’s position.
Gilmore and colleagues at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences had been planning the renovations for several years. As relatively modern as the building is, it lacked design elements essential to teaching and learning in the 21st century. This project, President Snyder said during the ceremony, directly addresses those needs.
“It will reflect and accommodate the innovative ways that Mandel School faculty teach and conduct research and how its students learn,” Snyder said. “It will give them space to interact, meet the needs of its team-oriented research centers, and encourage increased collaboration in teaching and learning.”
Earlier this year, the Higley Fund of the Cleveland Foundation committed $1 million to the renovation. Also providing significant support for the project were: the Cleveland Foundation; university board chairman Chuck Fowler and his wife, Char Fowler; Lilli and Seth Harris; alumna Holly Fowler Martens and her husband, Rob Martens; the Donald and Alice Noble Foundation; Saint Luke’s Foundation; and the John and Margie Wheeler Family Fund of the Cleveland Foundation.
The “wall-breaking” also marked the beginning of the Mandel School centennial celebration. The school was founded in 1915 as the first university-affiliated professional graduate school of social work in the U.S. Today, the Mandel School’s master’s degree program in social work is ranked No. 9 in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.