Long-time donors request name change to all Lastinger facilities
The Erin J. Lastinger Athletics Complex and Tennis Center as well as the Lastinger Parking Structure will undergo a name change Monday and Tuesday at the request of the longtime donors. EMILY PARIS, Staff Photographer
Beginning the week of Feb. 14, work began to change the names of several Chapman University facilities from Lastinger to Anderson at the request of the Anderson, formerly Lastinger, family.
Jerry Price, the dean of students and vice president for student affairs, sent an email to the Chapman community Feb. 21 announcing the upcoming maintenance to the Lastinger Parking Structure. The entrance and exit will be closed Feb. 28 from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and March 1 in the same window, so Price directed students to use the Barrera Structure at 200 W. Sycamore while Lastinger is closed.
“The removal of the lettering on the parking structure begins at 7 a.m. and is expected to take about one hour,” Cerise Valenzuela Metzger, the director of public relations at Chapman, told The Panther.
According to Valenzuela Metzger, the Lastinger Structures will now be known as the Erin J. Anderson Athletics Complex with the building signage being Anderson Athletics Complex. Lastinger Parking Structure will become the Anderson Parking Structure and Erin J. Lastinger Tennis Center will become Erin J. Anderson Tennis Center.
“Our longtime donor, the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation has requested these changes,” Valenzuela Metzger said.
The Erin J. Lastinger Athletics Complex was opened in 2008 with the help of a $6 million donation from the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation. The $20.5 million project included the athletics complex as well as a separately-funded 900-space underground parking structure topped with a 2,000 seat stadium, athletic field and Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Erin J. Anderson, formerly Lastinger, graduated from Chapman in 1988 and is the current president of the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation. She expressed her gratitude for her time at Chapman in a 2005 press release announcing the construction of the athletics complex.
“I fell completely in love with the school; it was the right fit, not just for academic reasons, but for the values and ethics that are part of the whole Chapman experience,” Erin Anderson said. “I wanted to help in extending that same experience to the student athletes of the future.”
In 2017, Erin Anderson provided the largest donation for the building of the $6 million Erin J. Lastinger ’88 Tennis Center. The center elevated Chapman’s tennis facilities to among the most impressive in Southern California.
That same year, Erin Anderson was honored at the Distinguished Alumni Awards celebration for her work with the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation — established in memory of her late father A. Gary Anderson — and its impact on education, the arts and human services throughout Southern California.
A. Gary Anderson was involved in the mortgage banking and real estate industries for 24 years and was a longtime resident of Orange County. He helped found the Children’s Fund of San Bernardino County, a charitable organization that provides services for at-risk children, and he was a founding member of the Inland Empire Economic Council.
After his death in 1992, the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation was established. In 1997, the foundation donated $3 million to Chapman’s Center for Economic Research, which was then renamed the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research.
In addition to Chapman University, the A. Gary Anderson family foundation has partnerships with Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Orange County, Hoag Hospital, Children’s Fund, the YMCA and numerous other organizations.
Erin Anderson is the recipient of the 1997 Ernst and Young LLP Spirit of Leadership Award, 2006 Alumna of the Year Award at Chapman University and the 2014 National AFP Foundation of the Year Award.
“Chapman helped to shape me into a good citizen and community leader, and my athletics experience added immeasurably to that experience,” Erin Anderson said in the 2005 press release. “I wanted to give back to my alma mater in a significant way.”
The Anderson Family’s significant contributions to Chapman have been memorialized in the Lastinger Athletics complex and tennis courts, and the upcoming name change is symbolic of their continued legacy within the Chapman community. The transition from Lastinger to Anderson will be officially completed by the end of March.
“New signage is expected to be in place by March 25,” Valenzuela Metzger said. “Directional signage and campus maps also will be adjusted by March 25.”
Correction: An earlier version of this piece previously misnamed Cerise Valenzuela Metzger, Chapman’s director of public relations. Her name has since been adjusted to reflect the proper spelling.