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Recent Private Gifts to Higher Education: A Big Boost for the Humanities and for Pianos

By Chronicle Staff July 28, 2019

The humanities received a major show of support when the chief executive of a private-equity firm donated $188 million to the University of Oxford, in England. In the United States, donors gave or pledged gifts to pay for financial aid for international students, psychiatry and stem-cell research, astronomical observation, socioeconomic diversity in theater and television studies, and pianos.

RankInstitutionDonorDonor backgroundGift valuePurpose
1.U. of OxfordStephen Schwarzmanco-founder and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, a global private-equity firm in New York$188 millionsupport for humanities research, including creation of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, which will house in a new building the university’s existing academic programs, along with a new institute of ethics in artificial intelligence
2.Amherst CollegeWilliam McC. Vickeryretired vice chair at the New York advertising firm of Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, a gifts officer in advancement and assistant treasurer at Amherst, and a 1957 Amherst alumnus who died on February 4, 2019$25 million$22 million to maintain and improve the buildings, grounds, and collections of the college’s Emily Dickinson Museum, with the balance to be used to maintain and purchase the music department’s pianos
2.Davidson CollegeRichard C. Halton and his husband, Jean-Marc FrailongHalton, a 1977 Davidson alumnus, is a retired lawyer and a private investor in California. Frailong is a computer scientist who co-founded the web-gateway company FreeGate.$25 million (pledge)to be decided by the donors

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The humanities received a major show of support when the chief executive of a private-equity firm donated $188 million to the University of Oxford, in England. In the United States, donors gave or pledged gifts to pay for financial aid for international students, psychiatry and stem-cell research, astronomical observation, socioeconomic diversity in theater and television studies, and pianos.

RankInstitutionDonorDonor backgroundGift valuePurpose
1. U. of Oxford Stephen Schwarzman co-founder and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, a global private-equity firm in New York $188 million support for humanities research, including creation of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, which will house in a new building the university’s existing academic programs, along with a new institute of ethics in artificial intelligence
2. Amherst College William McC. Vickery retired vice chair at the New York advertising firm of Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, a gifts officer in advancement and assistant treasurer at Amherst, and a 1957 Amherst alumnus who died on February 4, 2019 $25 million $22 million to maintain and improve the buildings, grounds, and collections of the college’s Emily Dickinson Museum, with the balance to be used to maintain and purchase the music department’s pianos
2. Davidson College Richard C. Halton and his husband, Jean-Marc Frailong Halton, a 1977 Davidson alumnus, is a retired lawyer and a private investor in California. Frailong is a computer scientist who co-founded the web-gateway company FreeGate. $25 million (pledge) to be decided by the donors
2. U. of California at San Francisco Susan and Bill Oberndorf Foundation (William E. and Susan Oberndorf) Bill Oberndorf co-founded the California investment firm SPO Partners and later founded the San Francisco investment company Oberndorf Enterprises. He is chair of the UCSF Board of Overseers. $25 million $20 million in unrestricted funds to be used at the discretion of Matthew State, chairman of the psychiatry department, and $5 million to support translational research projects in psychiatry and the neurosciences
2. U. of Chicago anonymous an individual who previously donated $10 million to the university $25 million support for a financial-aid program for international students
6. U. of Tennessee at Martin Bill and Rosann Nunnelly Bill Nunnelly, a 1970 alumnus of the university, is a semi-retired entrepreneur with experience in the wine, liquor, and restaurant business. $22 million (pledge) endowment for scholarships for students from rural counties in Tennessee, especially those from Hickman County, where Bill Nunnelly was raised on a cattle and feed-grain farm, and for those from Dickson, Giles, Lawrence, Lewis, Maury, and Humphreys Counties
7. Catholic U. of America William E. and Joanne Conway William Conway, a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, is a co-founder and co-executive chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm in Washington. $20 million funds to help build a nursing and sciences building for the School of Nursing, which has been named for the couple
7. Fort Hays State U. Foundation Earl and Nonie Field Earl Field operated Field Abstract and Title Co., in Kansas, from 1946 until his retirement in 1979. The couple are alumni who met at the university. He died in 2013, and Nonie Field died in 2009. $20 million (bequest) support for student scholarships in art, athletics, and music
7. U. of California at Los Angeles Patricia W. Mitchell Trusts (Patricia W. Mitchell) Patricia Mitchell, a former supper-club singer who died in 2016, was the widow of John H. Mitchell, who founded and was president of Columbia Pictures Television. He died in 1988. $20 million (bequest) $10 million to help create an endowed scholarship fund for the university’s School of Theater, Film and Television with the goal of making the school more socioeconomically diverse, and $10 million to support programming and digitization for the school’s Film & Television Archive
7. U. of California at San Diego Simons Foundation (James and Marilyn Simons) James Simons is the retired founder of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, a mathematician, and former chairman of the mathematics department at Stony Brook University. $20 million (pledge) support for operations of the Simons Observatory, which is being built in Chile’s Atacama Desert, for five years beginning in 2022, and for analysis of the data to be collected there
7. U. of Southern California Patricia W. Mitchell Trusts (Patricia W. Mitchell) Patricia Mitchell, a former supper-club singer who died in 2016, was the widow of John H. Mitchell, who founded and was president of Columbia Pictures Television. He died in 1988. $20 million (bequest) establishment of an endowed fund to support student scholarships in the university’s School of Cinematic Arts, and creation of a professorship in that school to be filled by a faculty member who will advance ethical and creative business practices in media industries
12. U. of California at Irvine Beall Family Foundation (Donald R. and Joan F. Beall) Donald Beall is a partner in Dartbrook Partners, a family investment advisory firm. He was chairman and chief executive of the aerospace company Rockwell International, from which he retired in 1998. $16.6 million support for a campus entrepreneurship and innovation program, which will be renamed UCI Beall Applied Innovation
13. U. of California at Los Angeles Sidney and Clara Szego Roberts The Robertses were endocrinologists and UCLA professors who joined the university in the late 1940s. Sidney Roberts died in 2016; Clara Roberts died in 2017. $12 million (bequest) $10.5 million to support scholarships for undergraduate students studying science and art, and $1.5 million to establish a professorship in molecular and cellular endocrinology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and to buy a grand piano for community outreach by the Herb Alpert School of Music
14. Carnegie Mellon U. Lane and Letty Bess Lane Bess, a 1983 Carnegie Mellon alumnus and a member of its Board of Trustees, founded Bess Ventures and Advisory, a management, investment, and marketing-services firm focused on the technology sector. $10 million endowment for the dean’s chair for the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
14. Cornell U. Adam J. and Brittany Levinson Adam Levinson is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of Graticule Asset Management Asia, an alternative investment management firm in Singapore, and a 1992 Cornell alumnus. Brittany Levinson is a graphic illustrator. $10 million expansion of opportunities for students to study and explore the China and Asia-Pacific region and its global impact
14. Cornell U. Samuel C. and Nancy Fleming Samuel C. Fleming, a 1962 Cornell alumnus and a trustee emeritus of the university who died on May 2 at age 78, was chairman emeritus of Decision Resources, a Boston company that analyzes the global biopharmaceutical and managed health-care markets. $10 million support to establish and build the Samuel C. Fleming Molecular Engineering Laboratories, a home for research on drug design and delivery, biomedical diagnostics, and the discovery of new materials
14. U. of California at Los Angeles Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (Eli and Edythe Broad) Eli Broad is a billionaire who founded the home-building company KB Home and the financial-services company SunAmerica. $10 million support for research into clinical applications of stem-cell therapies, and for faculty recruitment, training, and retention at the university’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research
14. U. of California at San Francisco Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (Eli and Edythe Broad) Eli Broad is a billionaire who founded the home-building company KB Home and the financial-services company SunAmerica. $10 million support for research on applying stem-cell technologies to developmental disorders, and for faculty recruitment, training, and retention at the university’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research
14. U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor Avenir Foundation (Alice Dodge Wallace) daughter of Homer Dodge, a physicist who was president of Norwich University, in Vermont, and an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway who left a significant portion of that stock to his two children when he died in 1983 $10 million support for new projects and programming, and acquisition and conservation of primary-source materials at the William L. Clements Library, and the naming of the library directorship as the Randolph G. Adams Director of the Clements Library in honor of the library’s founding director, who led the library from 1923 until his death in 1951
14. U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor Patricia W. Mitchell Trusts (Patricia W. Mitchell) Patricia Mitchell, a former supper-club singer who died in 2016, was the widow of John H. Mitchell, a 1939 Michigan alumnus who founded and was president of Columbia Pictures Television. He died in 1988. $10 million (bequest) $5 million to support scholarships, internships, and other programs for students and faculty members in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, including in the Department of Film, Television, and Media, with the remaining $5 million to expand the Stephen M. Ross School of Business’s efforts to develop ethical and diverse business leaders
14. U. of Oregon, Oregon Health & Science U. Tim and Mary Boyle Tim Boyle, a university alumnus, is chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, a retailer in Oregon that was founded by his grandparents in 1938. $10 million funds to recruit and support undergraduate and graduate students, and to attract faculty in areas like computer science, applied math, and genomics at a new biomedical data-science center that is a joint program of the two universities
14. U. of Rhode Island Michael D. and Elizabeth C. Fascitelli Michael Fascitelli, a 1978 university alumnus, is a managing partner at MDF Capital and the Imperial Companies. Elizabeth Fascitelli is a managing director at Goldman Sachs. $10 million $5 million for research and laboratory equipment in the new Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering, with the remaining $5 million to endow a fund to be used for the dean’s priorities.
14. U. of Southern California Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (Eli and Edythe Broad) Eli Broad is a billionaire who founded the home-building company KB Home and the financial-services company SunAmerica. $10 million support for research on applying stem-cell technologies to age-associated diseases, and for faculty recruitment, training, and retention at the university’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research
14. U. of Texas at Austin David Booth Booth co-founded and is executive chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors, an Austin, Tex., investment firm. $10 million (pledge) support for the Giant Magellan Telescope, the world’s largest telescope, which is being built at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile in partnership with 11 other universities
14. Vanderbilt U. Medical Center anonymous an individual who has a family member with schizophrenia. $10 million support for translational research on psychosis, clinical programs to treat psychotic disorders, and the creation of an endowed professorship within the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences

Note: Gifts and biographical information were compiled from news articles, news releases, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s database of charitable gifts. The database compiles gifts of $1 million or more from 2005 to the present.The Chronicle of Higher Education maintains a separate list of major gifts of $50 million or more to colleges and universities, dating back to 1967. The value of gifts is based on information from institutions or donors at the time the gifts were promised or received. In cases of stock, property, art, and other noncash donations, actual value may have increased or decreased since the gifts were pledged or received. Grants are excluded. Gifts of the same amount are listed alphabetically by institution. Information on gifts can be sent to gifts@philanthropy.com. Questions or comments on the Chronicle List should be sent to Ruth Hammond.

A version of this article appeared in the August 2, 2019, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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