January 25, 2021 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Mount Holyoke College
Liz Cochary Gross, and her husband, Phillip Gross, gave $10 million to support scholarships and other types of financial aid. She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1979.
Liz Cochary Gross is an adjunct associate professor and the former director of admissions and recruitment for the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. She previously served as a scientist in the Genetics Lab at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center. Phillip Gross co-founded Adage Capital Management, a hedge fund in Boston.
Alfred University
Martin and Michele Cohen donated $6 million to help pay for renovations to a heating plant — which will eventually house a new foundry for art and engineering students and will replace the university’s current central steam-heating plant with an energy-efficient distributed boiler system.
Martin Cohen co-founded and is chairman of Cohen and Steers Capital Management, a real-estate investment firm in New York. Michele Cohen, retired after an 18-year career also at Cohen and Steers, serves on the university’s Board of Trustees. The couple’s son, Adam, is a 2003 alumnus of the Alfred University School of Art and Design.
Khan Academy
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave $5 million through his Musk Foundation to the online learning nonprofit. The money will back the organization’s efforts to provide free online academic classes to people throughout the world who want to learn at their own pace.
Earlier this month Musk became the richest person in the world when his net worth was estimated at $183.7 billion by Forbes. Musk started his foundation in 2002. It supports research in renewable energy, human space exploration, pediatrics, and science and engineering. He holds citizenship in three countries: South Africa where he was born, Canada, and the United States.
Saint Michaels College
Barry Roy left $4 million for a variety of programs including two scholarship funds, one of which will prioritize aid to underrepresented students. Roy graduated from the college in 1967.
Roy was a retired lawyer who served as national director of tax quality assurance for Deloitte, a global accounting-services firm. Earlier in his career, he worked in the Office of Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service. He died in 2019 at 73.
Saint Joseph’s University
Daniel and Joan Hilferty gave $2 million to back the work of the university’s Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support. The center is researching and piloting new programs aimed at helping people on the autism spectrum find and employment and meaningful careers.
Daniel Hilferty graduated from the university in 1978. He retired last year as president and CEO of Independence Health Group, a health-insurance company.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
