John and Marva Warnock recently awarded the U’s engineering department $1.1 million worth of Adobe stock to fund renovations.
University of Utah President Michael K. Young said in a written statement that on top of the $6 million the Warnocks awarded to the department in 2003 for a new building, this money will be used to renovate the Engineering and Mines Classroom Building.
The building holds a variety of classrooms that range from labs to auditoriums.
Senior Vice President David Pershing said in a written statement, “The renovation and renaming of the building will benefit not just the engineering department, but all of campus as well.”
The building will be refurbished and will connect to the new building next to it: the “John E. and Marva Warnock Engineering Building.”
Young said the renovation serves several purposes because of the increasing number of graduates from the engineering program.
“Since ’99, the number of degrees coming out of the engineering department has risen by 60 percent,” he said.
Bryson Barney, junior in electrical engineering, said, “I personally have always liked the idea of a smaller class, which this may get rid of, but it will be nice to get the bigger building. On the other hand, this does mean that there is going to be more competition for jobs since there will be more people with the same degree that I have.”
The Adobe stock the award is being granted in comes from John Warnock’s previous work on the board of directors of Adobe, Inc.
He also has worked for Netscape; Mongonet, Inc.; ebrary, Inc.; Octavo Corporation and Salon Media Group.