Here’s One Philanthropist Who Keeps Going and Going and Going

To paraphrase that famous line from “When Harry Met Sally,” I would love to have whatever it is that drives the energetic Alyce Williamson, the Pasadena philanthropist who never seems to rest.

Two weeks ago, she was chairwoman of the annual powwow sponsored by the Heritage of the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, an organization of Music Center stalwarts. And on Friday, she and her husband, Warren “Spud,” hosted a welcome party for Richard Koshalek, who has taken over as president of Art Center College of Design after retiring as director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

Koshalek said he decided to repot himself at Pasadena’s Art Center “because the next generation of students is going to change the world, and this school can take the lead.” He has a point. It is regarded by many as the top design school in the country, and corporate giants regularly brainstorm on the 1,400-student campus. Chances are the students have had a hand in everything from the look of the car you drive to the style of your kitchen sink.

More than 200 members of Art Center One Hundred--the school’s premier support group founded by Williamson 14 years ago--filled the downtown L.A. California Club’s main dining room, including Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard and his wife, Claire.

What’s next for Alyce? On Feb. 12, she’ll be in the spotlight when the Pasadena Symphony pays tribute to her longtime contributions at the Symphony Ball 2000.

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The paramount obligation of a college is to develop in its students the ability to think clearly and independently and the ability to live confidently, courageously and hopefully.

--Etched at the entrance of

Scripps College in Claremont.

It’s been nearly 75 years since Ellen Browning Scripps, the spinster schoolteacher-turned-newspaper-magnate who uttered those words, established a place for women’s higher education as an integral part of the Claremont Colleges.

She was 90 when Scripps College opened in 1926. She called it her “new adventure.” Before she died two years later, she made sure her favorite causes would be beneficiaries of her enormous estate. (She reportedly dreaded the idea of an executor distributing her fortune.) Scripps’ legacy has been living confidently ever since. Unlike many sister institutions, Scripps never even considered going coed.

Under the leadership of its first woman president, Nancy Bekavac, Scripps formally launched the Campaign for the Scripps Woman on Saturday at a dinner for alumnae, family and friends at the Regency Club. Although the event marked the official kickoff, $45 million is already in the till, according to alumna and trustee Maria Hummer, an L.A. lawyer and West Coast campaign chairwoman. “It’s an investment in women who are going to make a difference,” she said.

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In spite of the late hour, everyone had a devil of a good time at the cast party following the Wednesday opening of L.A. Opera’s “Faust” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Amanda and Nick Stonnington were the “angels” in this scenario. The San Marino couple underwrote the first-night performance and bash held in the Music Center’s Impresario Room (an expense of about $50,000). Australian-born Nick Stonnington, who said he appeared in operas in Sydney as a child, joined the L.A. Opera Board in 1998. He underwrote the revival of last season’s “Don Giovanni.” L.A. Opera’s executive director, Peter Hemmings, offered the champagne toasts (accompanied by devil’s food cake) to the stars: Marcello Giordani (Faust), Leontina Vaduva (Marguerite) and Samuel Ramey, whose swashbuckling portrayal of Mephistopheles prompted one smitten fan to mutter that “he could make a nun kick a hole through a stained-glass window.”