$100-Million Donated to Washington’s Kennedy Center

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, has received $100-million from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.

The gift will be used for a planned $250-million education center; the performing-arts complex must still raise the rest of the money needed to build the center.

Ms. Reynolds, who became a multimillionaire by starting a student-loan business, has been a controversial philanthropist. Last year she canceled most of a $38-million pledge she made through her foundation to the Smithsonian Institution for an exhibit of American achievers (The Chronicle, February 21.)

Ms. Reynolds said she withdrew the money because the museum was not focusing the exhibit on the “power of the individual,” as she had wanted. Her decision came after the Smithsonian was widely criticized by historians and others for giving Ms. Reynolds too much control over how her donation would be used.