New Student Center Atrium Named for Alumnus Don Shippar

By:  Stephanie Dietrich
Staff Writer
Posted 3-19-09

The atrium in the new student center is now named after alumnus Don Shippar from the Class of 1988. 
Shippar is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of ALLETE, the corporate parent of Minnesota Power, Superior Water Light & Power, and others. Aside from graduating from UWS, he also served on the UW-Superior Foundation board of directors from 1993 to 2004.

After the Minnesota Power Foundation donated $150,000 to help the new student center construction project, it was proposed the atrium be named after Shippar. Shippar says the foundation is relatively new; founded about two years ago. He says it came to be through a transition from an internal contributions committee to a bona fide foundation. 

“We try to allocate our contributions across several areas: non-profits, community organizations, educational organizations, social services etc.,” said Shippar. “We don’t have a hard and fast allocation process, but we want to try to balance our giving so that we’re giving to all of those different areas.”  

Although the money came from the foundation, it was proposed by Jill Schoer, assistant chancellor for university advancement, that the new atrium be named after Shippar.

“She (Schoer) offered and proposed that they personally could use my name. It was a surprise to me,” said Shippar. “I then talked to our board of directors for the organization, ALLETE Minnesota Power, to make sure they were okay with that.  You know, it really isn’t my money directly; it’s really the company’s money, and they were very comfortable with that and endorsed it, so it worked out.  Again, I give Jill credit for being the one to offer that.” 

When asked if he ever thought while he was attending UWS that one day he would have part of a building named after him, Shippar laughed, “Not at all,” and added, “I’m really flattered.”

The Shippar Atrium will be one of the main gathering areas in the new student center.