$13 million gift gives Jennifer Galambos and Kent Place School a defining moment

Jennifer Galambos knows what a girl can learn on a court.

Long before she became head of Kent Place School, she was a standout on the women’s tennis team at Franklin & Marshall College, good enough that the college inducted her into its Athletic Hall of Fame last fall.

So it fits that the largest gift in the Summit, New Jersey, school’s 132-year history is going to a building where young women will run, compete, dance, perform, and learn to take care of themselves.

The $13 million gift, just announced, goes to the Leadership Center for Athletics, Wellness, and Performing Arts, now under construction on the campus of the independent girls’ school.

Galambos called it a defining moment for Kent Place.

The donors chose not to be named, keeping the spotlight on the students the gift will serve and the leader who has spent nearly a decade building toward it.

The gift raises support for the center to $45 million. It also brings the school’s Leading the Way campaign to $65 million, within $10 million of its $75 million goal.

When the center opens in 2027, it will include a second gymnasium, an indoor track, a fitness center, a dance studio, a theater, and spaces for wellness.

It is built on the conviction that leadership grows on the field and the stage as much as in the classroom.

Galambos has led Kent Place since 2017, when she became its 11th head of school.

Before that, she spent years at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, another all-girls school, as assistant head of school and upper school director.

At the May 2025 groundbreaking, she stood with trustees and campaign leaders as students, faculty, and staff signed a banner marking where the school was and where it was going.

A little more than a year later, the building is going up, and a single act of generosity has carried it most of the way.

For Galambos, the gift does more than pay for a building. It tells Kent Place girls that their strength, health, and creative lives are worth investing in at the highest level.

It also gives the campaign real momentum for the final stretch heading into 2027.