Evanston Township High School District 202 unanimously approved the acceptance of a $7 million donation from alum Leonard Schaeffer, Class of 1963, at its meeting on Jan. 13.
The high school plans to name its upgraded auditorium, which will be paid for by the donation, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for the Performing Arts.
Superintendent Marcus Campbell called the donation “an extraordinary act of generosity from one of our own.”
According to Campbell, the seven-figure donation is the largest in the ETHS Education Foundation’s history. Previously, Schaeffer had also donated $500,000 to ETHS for its planetarium, which is named the Leonard D. Schaeffer Theater and Michael Planetarium.
According to his bio on the website of the Brookings Institution, where he is vice chair of the board, Schaeffer is the founding chair and CEO of WellPoint, now known as Elevance Health, a health insurance provider. An alum of Princeton University, Schaeffer is a professor at the University of Southern California and a senior advisor to Whistler Capital Partners, a private equity firm.
The district’s Director of Communication, Reine Hanna, said Schaeffer was solicited by the ETHS Education Foundation for the donation. Per district documents, Schaeffer will make scheduled payments for the next three years.