The John C. Hench Foundation may cease its annual donations of $100,000 to the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts with the retirement of Bob Jacobs, a communications professor and director of the John C. Hench Production Art Studios, at the end of this school year.
Hench, a former senior vice president of creative affairs for the Walt Disney Company, helped design Disneyland, where Jacobs worked with him for five years. When Hench passed away, his assistant Sandy Huskins asked Jacobs to deliver a eulogy at the memorial service, but Jacobs was unable to attend due to finals week. Instead, he sent a video.
“I went into the studio, stood in front of the camera and poured my heart out about John [Hench],” Jacobs said. “A couple days later, Sandy [Huskins] called and said the video I did was so memorable that the studio chief and the chief financial officer of Disney Imagineering said they wanted to do a little something for our school.”
Huskins sent Hench Foundation representatives to Bradley to talk with Jacobs, and before they arrived, Jacobs had the walls of the production studios in the Global Communications Center painted with the colors Hench patented, such as Mickey Mouse Pants Red, Tigger Orange and Donald Duck Bill Yellow.
“They walked in and said, ‘Wow, this is incredible,’” Jacobs said. “[They said] it feels like creativity, [and] Walt would’ve liked this.”
The representatives asked Jacobs what they could do for Bradley, and Jacobs told them Bradley needed to move into the digital age by getting rid of “all of this old technology that doesn’t work anymore.”
Jacobs gave the representatives an estimate of $97,000 to make the shift.
“[One representative] took out his checkbook and wrote us a check for $100,000 and said he would give us $100,000 a year every year that I stay here teaching to keep this place up to date,” Jacobs said.
After 11 years since the first donation, the money has updated the John C. Hench Productions Arts Studio with three cameras with teleprompters, professionally-designed sets, a green room and more. With Jacobs retiring at the year’s end, however, the continuation of the Hench Foundation’s annual donation remains uncertain.
Discussions today between Jacobs and Hench Foundation representatives will determine the continued future funding for the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts production studios.
“We don’t know yet,” Jacobs said. “Part of what we are going to discuss while they’re here is if they are going to continue to support this studio, or when I leave do they leave,” Jacobs said.
The John C. Hench Production Art Studios are currently home to television arts classes and student shows such as Midstate Magazine.
