$500,000 Palmer Foundation gift honors alumni leader Mimi Barash Coppersmith

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Palmer Foundation has stepped forward with a $500,000 gift to recognize the many contributions of Penn State alumna, volunteer and community leader Mimi Barash Coppersmith, who shared a lifelong friendship with Barbara Palmer until the latter’s death in 2019. In celebration of the gift, timed to coincide with Coppersmith’s 90th birthday, the Palmer family will join the University in paying tribute to her accomplishments and memorializing her legacy by naming the studio classroom in the new Palmer Museum of Art in her honor.

“Across decades of dedicated volunteerism and visionary leadership, Barbara and Mimi have both proven themselves to be influential catalysts for change at Penn State and the many organizations where they lent their talents,” said Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. “As Mimi marks this birthday milestone, I feel immense gratitude to the Palmer Foundation for choosing to highlight their friendship in a way that will advance the success of the Palmer Museum and its impact on our students, which they championed and treasured throughout the museum’s growth and transformation.”

The Palmer Foundation gift caps a historic four-year philanthropic effort to secure $22 million in charitable giving for the building project, fulfilling an ambitious fundraising goal as part of a total projected budget of $85 million. With a portion of the gift channeled to construction costs, the remainder of the resources will jump-start plans for publicizing and celebrating the grand opening of the museum next year.

At the Palmer Foundation’s request, the studio classroom will bear Coppersmith’s name in recognition of her decades of volunteerism. From art classes to workshop and camps, the versatile and innovative educational space will facilitate hands-on creative learning for students of all ages and will draw participants from the campus community, as well as area school districts and families around the region. The opening of the space will mark the first time in the museum’s history of having a studio classroom.

“The Mimi Barash Coppersmith Studio Classroom will play a critical role in expanding access to opportunities for teaching and experiential learning, and it will empower our visitors to engage with and create art across a variety of media,” said Erin M. Coe, director of the Palmer Museum of Art. “Education is the cornerstone of our mission, so it feels especially poignant that this space will bear the name of someone who has advocated her entire life to expand access to education for current and future generations.”

About Mimi Barash Coppersmith

The Palmer Foundation’s commitment has special meaning not only for the institution but also for Coppersmith, who was informed of the gift this summer.

“When I got the call from the Palmer family telling me about the gift, I felt such an outpouring of gratitude,” Coppersmith said. “Barbara and I were such dear friends and supported each other at a time when women had to fight to have their voices heard. I’m deeply honored that the Palmer family is highlighting the work Barbara and I did to make the world of art accessible for Penn Staters and for visitors from across the commonwealth.”

Coppersmith (née Ungar) traces her dedication to service to a pivotal event from her childhood. On July 25, 1944, a telegram informed her family that her brother Calvin — a B-17 navigator for the U.S. Army Air Corps — had been killed in action over Italy. Faced with her parents’ profound grief, Coppersmith vowed at 11 years old that she would find happiness in easing the burdens of those afflicted by hardship and tragedy. One source of consolation to the Ungar family came in the form of a second brother to Coppersmith, Sanford, who was born 11 months after his brother’s death.

After graduating from Penn State with a degree in journalism in 1953, Coppersmith chose to remain in State College and forge a career as an entrepreneur and community leader. Her 1954 marriage to Sy Barash produced two children, Carol and Nan, and together the couple co-founded The Barash Group in 1958, which Nan continues to operate today. In the late 1960s, Coppersmith became a mainstay columnist of “Town&Gown,” a regional magazine covering events, community activities and history, and with Barash’s death from lung cancer in 1975, took over as publisher.

Alongside her professional responsibilities, Coppersmith became a fixture of volunteerism throughout the community, serving as president of the Chamber of Business & Industry of Centre County and on the board of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, among many other leadership roles. She also played a key role in mobilizing support for the Osaze’s Heart Community Service Scholarship, which is available to racially underrepresented high school seniors from State College Area High School who serve the community through volunteerism.

She made history when she was elected in 1990 as the first woman chair of the Penn State Board of Trustees, a position she held for a two-year term. In 1998, she became a recipient of the Penn State Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor bestowed on Penn State graduates. Her service was coupled with gifts that created numerous permanent endowments, including the Sy Barash Family Renaissance Scholarship, the Sy and Mimi Barash Freshman Scholarship Fund, the Mimi U. Coppersmith Educational Equity Scholarship in the College of Arts and Architecture and the Mimi Barash Coppersmith Endowed Scholarship in Women’s Studies, in addition to funding many other philanthropic priorities. She was also a driving force behind the creation of the Renaissance Fund and continues to serve as a board member. Her generosity earned her membership in Laurel Circle of Penn State’s Mount Nittany Society, with a still-growing lifetime giving total of more than $2 million.

Coppersmith’s 2018 memoir, “Eat First, Cry Later,” chronicled her triumphs and tragedies. Like her first partnership, her second marriage to Lou Coppersmith again ended tragically when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1989.

“I’ve been fortunate to live a rich and satisfying life, but my service at Penn State has driven home the lesson that there is nothing more gratifying than helping those in need,” Coppersmith said.

Palmer Foundation Gift

Barbara Palmer, along with her husband, James, was a lifelong patron and volunteer of the University who devoted herself to expanding access to education and the arts — efforts that earned her the status of honorary alumna in 1987. The couple’s philanthropy was especially visible in the College of Arts and Architecture, where they supported, among other areas, student scholarships, the Center for the Performing Arts, Penn State Centre Stage, Penn’s Woods Music Festival and, most notably, their namesake, the Palmer Museum of Art. The Palmers gifted their private collection of American art to the museum, complementing the many other works of art that they gifted over several decades.

Today, the Palmer Foundation carries forward the family’s philanthropic legacy with commitments that continue to build on and echo the leadership of their forebears.

“My mom and Mimi loved and relied on each other,” said Chuck Palmer. “They shared a talent for business and advertising, and over time our families became inseparable. In fact, I was having dinner with Mimi the evening that mom died, which tells you all you need to know about how close and devoted to each our families were and are. Mimi’s 90th birthday seemed like the perfect occasion to celebrate her achievements and drive forward efforts at the new museum to inspire the next generation of Penn Staters to learn from and appreciate the arts.”

The Palmer Foundation’s gift brings full circle a philanthropic initiative that began in 2015 when Coppersmith herself mobilized contributions from nearly 125 alumni and friends of the University to establish an endowment honoring Barbara Palmer on her 90th birthday. The resulting fund continues to play a pivotal role in supporting projects at the Palmer Museum related to acquisitions, conservation and exhibitions.

“Over the years, the Palmer name has become synonymous with championing the arts at Penn State,” said B. Stephen Carpenter II, Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture. “This latest gift is truly extraordinary because it does so many things at once — it celebrates Mimi’s tremendous legacy as a volunteer, puts us over the top of our aggressive fundraising goal for the new museum and provides much-needed resources for planning the museum’s inaugural year. I am grateful to the Palmer Foundation for continuing to act as an engine of excellence that will benefit not just Penn Staters but all the visitors who will be drawn to experience art at this exceptional venue.”

Located adjacent to the H.O. Smith Botanical Gardens at the Arboretum at Penn State, the new Palmer Museum of Art features an innovative design that includes a series of interlocking pavilions clad in regional stone that evokes the geology of central Pennsylvania. The new building will double the size of the original museum’s galleries, streamline accessibility, increase foot traffic and act as an engine of economic growth in the Centre County region. In keeping with Penn State’s commitment to environmental sustainability, the new museum will clear the bar as a high-performance building with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

The Palmer Museum holds one of the finest collections of American art in any academic museum in the country. From early portraiture and dramatic Hudson River School landscapes to compelling genre scenes and Gilded Age works, the museum’s American art holdings provide keen insight into the nation’s history and culture. The Palmer’s collection is particularly strong in early American modernism, with examples by members of the Eight, the Ashcan School, and the Stieglitz circle. Other strengths of the museum’s growing collection of more than 10,500 works of art include modern and contemporary art; contemporary studio glass; ceramics from a range of global cultures and eras; African art; Asian art; European paintings and sculptures; drawings; prints; and photographs and other works on paper.

Leaders like Mimi Barash Coppersmith and the Palmer family advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients, and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.