Paul Smith’s College President Cathy Dove announced the ruling on the Adirondack college’s website Wednesday.
The college’s board of trustees voted over the summer to rename the college Joan Weill-Paul Smith’s College in exchange for a $20 million donation from Weill, wife of Sanford Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup.
The plan drew the ire of alumni who said it set a bad precedent for charitable giving.
The college was established by the will of J. Phelps Smith. He stipulated the college be “forever known as Paul Smith’s College of Arts and Sciences” to honor his father, who ran a hotel on the lakeside college’s site in the 19th century.
Dove, who became the college’s first female president last summer in the wake of cost-cutting layoffs of 12 percent of staff, had argued that the $20 million Weill had pledged was critical to the school’s future. She said the addition of Weill’s name would add international cachet that would attract more donations and help build enrollment, currently around 1,000.
“There is little doubt the financial position of Paul Smith’s, or any institution for that matter, would improve with the injection of $20 million of revenue,” Franklin County state Supreme Court Judge John Ellis wrote in his decision, which was released Tuesday. But he rejected the argument that the college’s continued existence depended on changing its name.
