Generosity Comes Full Circle
With U President James Fletcher looking on, ground is broken for the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library on November 25, 1969, by his children and widow (from left), Nancy Eccles Hayward, Spencer F. Eccles, and Hope Fox Eccles.
The June 2021 announcement of a $110 million gift to establish the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine brought the Eccles Family full circle in a philanthropic journey at the University of Utah that began with a gift for the medical library in the 1960s.
At the time, Spencer Stoddard Eccles, father of the medical school’s new namesake, was vice chair of the U’s Board of Regents and a key player in the effort to build a medical school and hospital on the U campus. When it opened its doors in 1965, it was state-of-the-art in every way except one: space for a medical library had barely been carved out, and was in a dark, windowless, crowded room in the basement.
In short order, U representatives that included Regent Reed Brinton and Medical School Dean Ken Castleton approached Spencer S. Eccles to remedy the situation with initial funding for a standalone, high-quality health sciences library to match the caliber of the U’s new medical center.
Terminally ill at the time, Spencer S. committed to giving the $100,000 requested for the library, which the U chose to name in his honor. As construction costs increased, his wife, Hope, and children, Nancy and Spence, contributed an additional $150,000 in his memory as he passed away prior to the library’s groundbreaking and its ultimate completion in 1971.
Now—50 years later—the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library continues to grow, innovate, and lead the way in serving the medical community in Utah and nationally. And the original medical school building nearby is about to make way for the U’s extraordinary new, technologically advanced home for the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine.