One year after Boston University Trustee Rajen Kilachand donated $25 million to endow the Kilachand Honors College, KHC students said they are appreciative of Kilachand’s second donation to the honors college of $10 million.
“I think we’re really fortunate,” said KHC and College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Anisha Kalyani. “It speaks volumes about the honors college and how important of a program it is.”
Kilachand’s new donation will be used to renovate and rename Shelton Hall to Kilachand Hall, according to an email sent Monday to KHC students and faculty. Renovations would include a common room, KHC administrative offices, event space and official living space for KHC and other BU students.
“I hope the renovated facilities will be completed before I graduate,” said Benjamin Coleman, a KHC and CAS freshman. “The honors college will have an actual home now.”
College of Engineering junior Alexander Valentine, who will be among the first class to graduate from KHC, said by putting Kilachand’s name on Shelton Hall, people might recognize him and the donations he has given to the school more.
“It’ll be good to get his name on a building so people know more about him,” Valentine said. “He’ll become part of the university. He’s making his mark.”
Valentine said he learned Kilachand, a School of Management alumnus, was very in touch with humanity when he met him last year after the first donation.
“He grew up in India, and when he came to BU, he didn’t have any idea what any of the customs were,” Valentine said. “He’s really human for someone who is so powerful and has so much influence over people.”
Kalyani said Kilachand was involved on more of a “ground level” after she and other KHC students met and talked with him last year.
“Other people sometimes donate, just have the big ceremony and then leave, but he stayed and talked to us,” she said. “It shows that he really cared about the students he was helping.”
CAS junior Nicole Snyder said it would be nice if the renovations in Shelton Hall included a place that seated all the students in KHC, which she said is focused on interdisciplinary educations.
“KHC is really intent on giving us aspects on different disciplines with the idea that if you have a broader education, you can think outside the box in your own field,” she said.
Snyder said Kilachand’s $25 million donation last year solidified the program and ensured its stability. She said KHC is made up of a “small community within a larger institution,” that was established as the University Honors College in 2010.
“We’re all pretty close, and even the people I don’t know I would definitely still feel connected to them because we’ve been through the same stuff and know the same people,” she said.
Snyder said Kilachand’s donation gives her more motivation to give back to BU and KHC in the future if she has the ability to do so.
“Just any sort of donation can be seen as an investment,” she said. “So he [Kilachand] is investing in this broader education — he’s investing in new thinkers and new creators.”
Kalyani said Kilachand’s second donation will add to the first in efforts to improve BU’s infrastructure and to benefit KHC’s programs and students.
“I think we’re privileged to have the opportunity to give back on a big scale like that,” she said. “His donations will help the honors college for years.”
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