The Board of Trustees will vote to remove the name after Barbara Geralds, the former wife of top OU donor Steven Schoonover, asked for the Schoonover Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact to be renamed.
Ohio University donor Barbara Geralds wishes to change the name of a new storytelling institute that carries her name.
The Barbara Geralds Schoonover Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact was approved by the Board of Trustees at its June 26 meeting. Geralds, the former wife of top OU donor Steven Schoonover, wants OU to remove ‘Schoonover’ from the title and use her prefered name instead. She previously went by the name Barbara Geralds Schoonover.
The name change will be up for a vote on Aug. 28 at the next Board of Trustees meeting. Geralds “requested a change in the institute designation to reflect her preferred name,” according to an Aug. 6 interoffice communication from Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit in the Board of Trustees agenda.
Beniot supports Geralds’ request, which would change the institute’s name to the Barbara Geralds Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact.
“The donor informed the university that she has transitioned to using her maiden name, Barbara Geralds, in her professional work and associations,” OU spokeswoman Katie Quaranta said in an email. “She requested that the name of the institute reflect that preference.”
The Schoonover part of Geralds’ name has already been dropped from some university websites and the institute’s Facebook page.
The institute, which will explore the storytelling and social impact aspects of communication, was established as part the Scripps College of Communication.
According to its purpose statement in the June Board of Trustees agenda, the new institute aims to “combine the practical art of storytelling with the academic study of narrative activity” and will open Sept. 10.
Geralds donated $100,000 to the institute for startup costs and an additional $1 million to support the program “in perpetuity.”
Geralds’ former husband, Steven Schoonover, donated $7.5 million to OU in 2007 toward the construction of the Steven L. Schoonover Center for Communication, according to a previous Post report.
Records obtained by The Post show that Schoonover, in an April 2 email to OU administrators and Ohio University Foundation executive members, suggested the university handle criticism of its decisions regarding 31 Coventry Lane by playing “the race card” the way Democrats handle Republican criticism of President Barack Obama.
After the news of Schoonover’s email surfaced, the Ohio University Student Union circulated a petition that demanded his name be removed from the Schoonover Center for Communication and he step down from his position on the OU Foundation.
On July 16, Schoonover apologized for his remarks in a letter he sent to The Athens NEWS.
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