Rhode Island School of Design Celebrates $20 Million Gift to Fund Student Scholarships, Support Faculty Positions

Historic gift will support the establishment of the Maxwell Scholarship Fund and the Maxwell Global Perspectives Faculty Fund

PROVIDENCE, RI – April 7, 2026 – Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is pleased to announce a gift of $20 million — the largest outright gift in RISD’s history — from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation to establish the Maxwell Scholarship Fund and the Maxwell Global Perspectives Faculty Fund.

RISD has long been a place where art and design are understood as ways of knowing — not just ways of making. New endowed faculty positions and a rotating residency program dedicated to global art traditions will deepen that commitment, bringing a wider range of perspectives, histories and creative practices into the heart of the curriculum. The Maxwell Scholarship Fund will add eight new, fully funded tuition scholarships for undergraduate students, and the Maxwell Global Perspectives Faculty Fund will endow two new faculty positions and one rotating visiting residency for scholars, artists, designers, and architects representing global art-making traditions. These funds will shape how art and design are taught and understood for generations — educating artists and designers who are not only skilled, but genuinely equipped to engage the complexity of the world they are making.

RISD President Crystal Williams said, “Art and design impact every facet of society. Because of this, artists and designers can drive consequential change. This gift advances these change-making opportunities, the power of communities that reflect a broad diversity of global perspectives, and RISD’s vision to remain among the best, most dynamic art and design schools in the world. It will help us ensure that the educational path is open and accessible to the next generation of creatives and that once here, they are able to learn the broadest array of traditions and expertise possible.”

Delle Maxwell 74 TX and her husband Pat Hanrahan cofounded the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation to support individual scientists, teachers, conservationists, and creators whose diverse perspectives enable us to discover new things about ourselves and our world. “My husband Pat and I recognize that investments in talented, innovative people can transform not only their individual explorations, one field, or one institution, but the ways we connect people, places, and ideas,” Maxwell said. “As I look back, I realize how much RISD influenced my worldview. My experience made it possible for me to meet creative people from different backgrounds and encouraged us to learn from each other. I’ve carried these varied perspectives, as well as design principles, with me throughout my career.”

Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation has supported RISD’s Loop Lab, where a pilot initiative of the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab is exploring new possibilities for material circularity on campus to turn RISD’s own waste streams into raw materials for creative practice. The Foundation also supports the Movement Lab, a cross-disciplinary center for the creative study of movement.

About Rhode Island School of Design
RISD (pronounced “RIZ-dee”) is a creative community founded in 1877 in Providence, Rhode Island. Today, we enroll 2,577 students hailing from 60 countries. Led by a committed faculty, students are engaged in more than 40 full-time bachelor’s and master’s degree programs and supported by a worldwide network of over 33,000 alumni who demonstrate the vital role artists and designers play in today’s society.

Through a common first-year program, cross-disciplinary curriculum of studio-based learning and rigorous study in the liberal arts, RISD students are encouraged to develop their own creative processes, and are united by a guiding principle: in order to create, one must question. In cultivating expansive, elastic thinking and creative intelligences, RISD seeks to foster a critical exchange that empowers artists, designers, and scholars to generate and challenge the ideas that shape our world. RISD’s mission, at both the college and museum, is not only to educate students and the public in the creation and appreciation of works of art and design, but to transmit that knowledge and make global contributions. 

At RISD, we exalt the creative, demand daring questions, and wield limitless influence. Visit risd.edu to learn more.

About Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation
The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation seeks ways to support individuals who explore and ask through fieldwork in natural sciences, create and captivate as they promote mastery in craft, teach and try as they support students in public education, and conserve and connect as they encourage care for our food systems and natural world. Learn more about the Foundation’s partners and work at www.Maxwell-Hanrahan.org.

RISD contact:
Jaime Marland
Senior Director, Public Relations / RISD
jmarland@risd.edu
401 427-6954