$1M Gift Creates Gathering Spaces in Fisher’s Lavery Library

A $1 million gift from Bob ’74 and Terry Dumas will create spaces for students to gather and study throughout the newly modernized Lavery Library at St. John Fisher University, slated to reopen this fall.

The gift was made as part of the University’s comprehensive fundraising campaign, Fisher Forward. It supports the Lavery Library Modernization and Renovation Project, which at $38 million, is the largest capital project in scope and investment in the institution’s history. The gift will help to create and furnish an outdoor patio area adjacent to the library, as well as a group study room and bright, airy lounge space on the third floor of Lavery Library, overlooking the Upper Quad area of the Fisher campus.

Bob Dumas graduated from Fisher with a bachelor’s degree in history and went on to serve most of his career as a middle school teacher at A.D. Oliver Middle School in Brockport. He retired in 2007. Terry Dumas also spent her career in education, serving much of that time as a French teacher in the Brockport Central School District. Ardent supporters of the University, the Dumas’ are members of Fisher’s 1948 Society and Spire Society.

“I am grateful to the Dumas’ for their ongoing support of the University,” said Dr. Gerard J. Rooney, president of the University. “As educators, Bob and Terry appreciate the importance of a robust library to the educational experience, and generations of future Fisher students will benefit from the gathering spaces that their philanthropy helped make possible. The outdoor patio space is a particularly good fit for Bob and Terry as master gardeners.  The area combines their love of the outdoors with their lifelong pursuits in education.”

View the latest progress on the Lavery Library Modernization and Renovation project website, and for more information about the Fisher Forward campaign, visit fisherforward.sjf.edu.