The last time Jan Tarble donated money to Eastern it cost her $14.95 to overnight the check to Eastern President Lou Hencken.

This time, Hencken flew to California to pick up a $2.5 million check from Tarble.

“The last time she donated money we called her to thank her,” he said.

Tarble asked Hencken if he knew about the $14.95 it cost her to send the money overnight.

“When I was there the last time I said, ‘you know now that you’re giving me this check, the whole reason I came out here was to save you the $14.95,'” Hencken said.

The $2.5 million donation will be used for Eastern’s New and Emerging Artists series, which will bring in artists in creative writing, theater, music and art. The series will include symposia on the creative process. The entire series will allow visiting artists to present master classes.

“We will be able to bring in people with the interest off of this money that we might not otherwise be able to afford, maybe an off-Broadway play,” Hencken said.

Hencken, Jim Johnson, the Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, and Vaughn Jaenike, dean emeritus of the College of Fine Arts, all traveled to California to collect the check from Tarble.

Hencken said that in order to get bigger gifts from donors, he has to develop a relationship with the person.

“The first time I asked for money from Jan Tarble, it was probably my fourth or fifth time I had seen her,” Hencken said.

The first donation Tarble gave Hencken was used for the Tarble Arts Foundation, so the university could bring works of art to the Tarble Arts Center.

This time, Hencken went to visit Tarble in April. She had discussed giving $2 million or $2.5 million to the university.

On that visit, Hencken told her exactly what he wanted.

“I want $2.5 million – that’s what we talked about,” Hencken said. “I was about to say, and we also talked about $2 million, I wanted to be honest.”

But Tarble had already said she’d write the check.

“We are very excited about the gift,” Johnson said. “The endowment will help support artists coming to campus and make it financially feasible for anyone to attend.”

The money will be aimed at bringing artists and will also focus on video, playwrights and touring companies, he said.

The College of Arts and Humanities will be working throughout this semester and next year to plan what the money from the endowment will be specifically used for.

The money will benefit Doudna but it will also benefit the university for years to come.

“It will go for the emerging artists series, it will sit in a foundation and 25 years from now this money will be giving benefits,” Hencken said.

Tarble believes the latest donation is a fitting way to honor her parents, who she believes would be enthusiastic about the new fine arts center and the activities the university has planned there.

“We were very fortunate to be able to do it,” Tarble said. “It’s a worthwhile project.”

Newton, Louise and Jan Tarble have donated more than $9 million to benefit the arts at Eastern, making them the largest donors in Eastern history.

In 2005, Tarble donated $2 million to the Tarble Arts Center and its programs and collections.

“She always gives credit to her mother and father,” Hencken said. “She always says they are the ones that made this money and we’ve all put it together in this foundation.”

The Tarble Foundation may be giving more money to Eastern in the near future.

“She has made another pledge, if we can raise money from other sources she will match it,” Hencken said.

Jan Tarble will receive an honorary degree from Eastern at May’s graduation.