IU Receives $40 Million Gift to Rename Assembly Hall

The Hoosiers’ basketball home at Indiana University is getting a makeover and legally changing its name.

Assembly Hall, which has played host to IU hoops since opening in 1971, will be rechristened Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall after Cindy Simon Skjodt, an Indianapolis philanthropist and IU graduate, donated $40 million to the school. (Skjodt is pronounced “Scott.”) The gift is the largest IU has ever received, per president Michael McRobbie. Renovations will include a new Jumbotron, escalators, and luxury seating on the south end of the arena.

Previously, Simon Skjodt and the Simon family on the whole gave $50 million to the Indianapolis-based Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center and toward the creation of Simon Hall on IU’s main campus in Bloomington.

“I grew up going to Indiana University games and have great memories of watching basketball games with my father,” Simon Skjodt said in a statement. “The atmosphere in Assembly Hall is truly unmatched anywhere in college basketball.”

Simon Skjodt’s new gift kick-starts IU’s unprecedented $150 million “Catching Excellence: The Campaign for Indiana University Athletics” capital campaign. She serves as co-chair of that fundraising effort.

For more information, check out the IU Newsroom.