Hartwick Receives $1.25M Gift For Innovation

Hartwick College announced today that it has received a $1.25 million gift from Tim Herbert and Sally Griffiths Herbert ’88 to support its Center for Collaboration & Innovation. The Center will include the College’s new Makerspace and planned entrepreneurship hub (called the E-hub), and fabrication lab.

To honor their gift and celebrate their deep ties to the Hartwick community, the Center will be named The Griffiths Center for Collaboration & Innovation at Hartwick College.

The Griffiths gift will provide the backbone of support for the Center for Collaboration & Innovation. The College will soon move forward to hire a director of innovation to oversee programming at the Center.

“Sally and Tim understand the power of collaboration, and the power of a Hartwick education.  Their gift will enable our students to practice the open, innovative thinking, problem solving and creativity skills that they will need to be employed successfully in tomorrow’s workplace,” said Hartwick College President Margaret L. Drugovich. “Sally and Tim are certainly generous, but they are also visionaries. Their partnership improves the lives of Hartwick students every day.”

Hartwick’s Makerspace is an open format collaborative workspace for students, faculty, and invited guests to brainstorm, create, learn, and develop ideas. Located on the 4th floor of the Stevens-German Library, the Makerspace is designed to foster creativity and collaboration, with whiteboards and modular furniture that gives students a setting reflective of a professional but integrative work environment.

The Griffiths Center for Collaboration & Innovation will also include other programming spaces such as the E-Hub, where ideas, theory, and practice will support entrepreneurial models of thought and action across the curriculum. E-Hub projects will be generated through courses offered by Hartwick business faculty in partnership with experienced start-up business owners. Student projects will interface with and support the region’s larger community of entrepreneurs.

“Hartwick is so important to Tim and I,” said Griffiths Herbert. “It was such a huge part of our lives. This center can help guide Hartwick students’ futures, and it is an honor to be able to make this commitment in the name of my family.”

The Griffiths have a long history of supporting the College. In 2014, as part of their support for the Campaign for Hartwick Students, they made possible a host of enhancements to Moyer Pool and related facilities, which then became part of the Sally Griffiths Herbert ’88 Aquatic Center.

For more information on the Makerspace at The Griffiths Center for Collaboration & Innovation, read our news story.