JANE CHACE CARROLL

risd connection: Jane Chace Carroll is a longtime RISD supporter and trustee. She has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 1990, serving on its Executive and Institutional Advancement committees, and as former vice chair of the Campaign Steering Committee. Carroll is a member of The RISD Museum’s Radeke Society and has acted as both co-chair and chair of the Museum Committee; she also served on the Advisory Task Force on the Museum Director and on the Architect Selection Committee for the new Chace Center.

other interests: Carroll’s commitment to art education extends to her other volunteer involvements as well. A resident of Manhattan, she works as a docent in the education department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was one of the early members of the volunteer organization, now 1,200 members strong, and where she continues to serve in a leadership role on the volunteer executive committee. Carroll has developed an expertise in Chinese, Japanese and modern art and for the past 35 years has given public tours in these areas at the Met. She is also an active volunteer at Smith College, her alma mater.

type of gift made: Together with her two siblings, Malcolm G. (“Kim”) Chace III and Eliot Chace Nolen, Carroll has made a major contribution to RISD’s Future by Design capital campaign — to support programs and projects for a proposed facility designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect José Rafael Moneo. Known in its planning stages as the RISD Center, the building will be named The Chace Center in honor of the family’s signature gift.

rationale: Carroll credits her and her siblings’ propensity for philanthropy and service to their upbringing. Her family is known in Rhode Island for its generous support of worthy causes, from her mother Beatrice Oenslager (“Happy”) Chace’s role in the preservation of historic Benefit Street in the 1950s to her brother Kim’s commitment to Providence’s Trinity Repertory Theater today. With their sincere passion for and knowledge of the arts, the Chace siblings wanted to ensure ready public access to one of the region’s great cultural assets — The RISD Museum. Besides, “they are among the most knowledgeable and generous contributors in America today,” says RISD President Roger Mandle, and “they all believe in the expansive, unifying concept of this central facility.”

why risd? “Our family has always been involved with RISD and The RISD Museum,” Carroll explains. “Growing up in Providence, we spent a lot of time at the Museum; it was very much a part of our lives.” Although she is now more involved in the Met on a day-to-day basis, she still believes in The RISD Museum and its potential to serve an even broader public. “It's a wonderful place,” she concludes, “with a marvelous collection and educational programs.”