NEELA PATEL CENTER FOR INNOVATION
LEADERSHIP GIFT FROM SHEPPARD FAMILY TRANSFORMS LIBRARY SPACE BY TERESA MESSMORE
Tower Hill’s Middle and Upper School Library is undergoing a dramatic transformation to support innovation in the school’s curriculum and programs, made possible by a $1.5 million lead gift from Sonal and John Sheppard through the CSP Family Foundation to the Tower Hill 100 Centennial Campaign.
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The Neela Patel Center for Innovation will serve as a hub for interdisciplinary learning and collaboration, fostering core skills of communication, research, critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork in students. The complete library renovation will increase access to books and digital resources while providing more space for interactive learning.
The center will be named for Sonal Sheppard’s mother, Neela Patel, who has motivated the family’s focus on education for many years. Patel ingrained in her children the lifelong value of education, encouraging them to succeed academically and nurturing a love of learning in her grandchildren, Jayden ’28 and Sadie ’28. Her late husband, Chandu, was a structural engineer for many years, but later changed his focus to the pharmaceutical industry—where he successfully owned and ran a pharmaceutical company—by reading extensively and teaching himself key aspects of the business with an entrepreneurial mindset. Patel honored his memory by opening an engineering school at a college in India to help provide others with more opportunities.
“Generations of Tower Hill students will benefit from this monumental project,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “We are immensely grateful to the Sheppards for making this vision a reality.”
“Education has always been drilled into us as the most important thing we can acquire in life, and no one can take that from you,” said Sheppard, who graduated from the University of Delaware and
Tower Hill Bulletin
Fall 2021
