by President Ann Cudd
April 1, 2024
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Today at a press conference with many special guests including Gov. Tina Kotek, Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Mayor Ted Wheeler, Portland State announced that Jordan Schnitzer, a noted Portland philanthropist and member of one of PSU’s most generous benefactor families, has made a $10 million gift to support our mission and to revitalize downtown Portland.
The gift is exciting and worthy of celebration because it supports multiple, connected efforts related to arts education and downtown activation. A portion of the gift will provide capital support for PSU’s new Art + Design building, which will break ground this year. It will provide operational funding for the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, a free campus art museum launched in 2019 with support from Jordan Schnitzer and his family foundation. The gift will also help with PSU’s efforts to enhance our 44-acre campus as a downtown arts destination, broadly supporting the goals of our placemaking initiative and the Place Matters Design Competition.
In recognition of our decades-long relationship with the Schnitzer family, PSU will name its school of art and design the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design.
Jordan Schnitzer was among the first community members that I met upon becoming PSU’s president, and immediately we connected on the urgency and importance of downtown Portland and the role that PSU can play in its renaissance. Jordan’s roots are deep in downtown — the family’s ancestors had a home near our campus long before PSU moved to the neighborhood in 1952. His parents were extremely generous with Portland State, endowing the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies and the Arlene Schnitzer Visual Arts Prize, among other gifts. The family’s total lifetime philanthropic commitment to PSU tops $21 million.
Jordan and I share a passion for downtown Portland and the important role that education and the arts will play in bringing people together in the central city and adding energy and vitality to the downtown streetscape. I am extremely grateful for his investment in Portland State University, and his support of our students and efforts to continue to expand the ways in which we Let Knowledge Serve in Portland.