MEDIA RELEASES

Dominican University will dedicate the new Jay and Doris Christopher Center for Nutrition Sciences with a reception on Wednesday, April 30. The center, located in Parmer Hall, the university’s recently opened academic building, was named in honor of the Christophers and in appreciation of a $2 million gift by the couple. The gift includes a $500,000 endowment which will be used to maintain the facility, update equipment and advance the nutrition sciences curriculum.

The Jay and Doris Christopher Center for Nutrition Sciences includes a science demonstration kitchen, three laboratories dedicated to food preparation, food science and quantity food production, a storage pantry and faculty offices. The center provides for student-faculty research areas and will allow for greater community outreach through the quantity food production program and the catering of special events.

“This state-of-the-art facility is far above what we’ve seen at other universities,” said Jay Christopher. “We are confident that the nutrition science center will attract highly qualified students and greater interest to the university—just like a winning football team attracts more promising athletes to a campus.”

Dominican University’s nutrition science program began in 1958 as a home economics degree and has grown to include 62 majors and over 700 alumni. The program’s newest major, culinology—the blending of the culinary arts and the science of food, is one of only 10 programs in the country approved by the Research Chefs Association. The university’s food science curriculum has been submitted for approval by the Institute of Food Technologies this spring.

Doris Christopher is the founder and chairman of The Pampered Chef, the premier direct seller of high-quality kitchen tools sold through in-home demonstrations called cooking shows. Founded in 1980 with a $3,000 loan, the company grew from its roots in the basement of the Christophers’ River Forest home into a multimillion-dollar international corporation serving 12 million customers annually. The company was acquired in 2002 by the Berkshire Hathaway company.

“We are proud of our involvement in this center and excited about its possibilities,” said Doris Christopher. “Cooking, and more importantly, family meal time, has always been a passion of mine. As a society we have evolved from thinking of cooking as just something we have to do, to something that we truly enjoy. I hope that future nutrition students at Dominican University will find the joy in cooking as they pursue careers in food science.”

In 2006, Doris Christopher was inducted as a lifetime member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. She also received the Direct Selling Educational Foundation’s Circle of Honor Award in 2006 and the Direct Selling Association’s Hall of Fame Award in 2003. She is the author of The Pampered Chef: The Story of One of America’s Most Beloved Companies (2005) and Come To The Table: A Celebration of Family Life (1999).

Jay Christopher is the founder and chairman of Thatcher Corporation, a holding company for a family of entrepreneurial businesses which include Thatcher Technology Group, Visual Impact Products, Card-In-The-Box and Thatcher Real Estate Development. He served as executive vice president of The Pampered Chef and is a member of the board of directors of the Wall Street-based National Foundation For Teaching Entrepreneurship and Valparaiso University as well as the educational advisory board of the Museum of Science and Industry.