USU names College of Natural Resources after philanthropic Quinney Foundation

LOGAN — Utah State University College of Natural Resources is getting a new name and a $10 million gift.

The S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney Foundation has long supported the college, and this week announced the latest gift to the college now named for it.

USU President Stan Albrecht called the naming of the S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources “an opportunity to thank the Quinney family for its longstanding, generous and forward-thinking support of Utah State University.”

The Quinney Foundation has made gifts to USU for more than four decades. In 1989, the foundation established a scholarship and fellows program to support students. The program has provided scholarships to nearly 300 undergrads and fellowships for 71 graduate students.

Foundation gifts in 1992 funded the Quinney Library, which now boasts 60,000 volumes that relate to natural resources.

This will make the fourth named college at Utah State University. The others are the Caine College of the Arts, the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business.

“Having a named college really signals something in terms of the quality of the program,” Albrecht said. “It shows the level of the commitment the donors are willing to make to it. In major institutions, colleges carry the names of donors in thanks for a lifetime of giving.

“This is really big for us,” he said. “It’s an important symbol of the quality of the facility, the quality of the education we can offer and the quality of students we will be able to attact. This is a big step.”