Retired president and CEO of Deltic Timber Ray C. Dillon and his wife, Deborah, have donated $1 million to the University of Arkansas’s Anthony Timberlands Center. The gift will fund the Ray C. Dillon Endowed Chair in Arkansas Timber and Wood Design and Innovation, and the entrance hall of the building, being designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize Winner Grafton Architects of Dublin, Ireland, will be named for the Dillons.
The chair will direct the school’s master of design studies degree in integrated wood design and develop Garvan Woodlands Gardens as an academic classroom.
Dillon was quoted in the news release from the university:
“My hope is that this chair will serve as a mental catalyst for future students and help them understand what can be done with wood,” Dillon said. “Through their education, they can create new products using wood, and the forests will remain healthy and vibrant in return. We protect the forests by creating new markets for them.”
The university opened the nation’s first large-scale mass timber residence hall in 2019: Adohi Hall, designed by a collaborative including Modus Architects of Fayetteville, which is the local contractor for the Anthony Timberlands Center.