Swimwear Designer Anne Cole Leaves $2.5 Million for Otis College of Art and Design (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Texas A&M University at Kingsville Foundation

An anonymous donor has pledged more than 7,800 acres of Texas ranchland, valued at $16 million, plus $3.5 million in cash to support the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management.

The donation will allow students pursuing a master’s degree opportunities to conduct real-world case studies on land and animal management, including brush control, grazing management, livestock management, wildlife management, and marketing.

The cash portion of the gift will establish an operations and management endowment, and some of the gift will support the university’s Veterinary Technology program and provide scholarships for students attending veterinary school.

Atlanta BeltLine Partnership

The Atlanta billionaire Arthur Blank gave $17.5 million through his Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to back the development of Westside Park, an approximately 280-acre park that will eventually become the largest green space in the city of Atlanta.

Blank co-founded the Home Depot retail chain and owns a professional football team, the Atlanta Falcons, and a professional soccer team, the Atlanta United.

Roberts Wesleyan College

Thomas Golisano donate $7.5 million to build the Golisano Community Engagement Center, a new hub where students and others at the college can interaction. It will house student-life resources, and space for Roberts’ growing training and education programs.

Golisano founded Paychex, a Rochester, N.Y., company that provides businesses with payroll and other services. He is a longtime donor who has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 report of the biggest donors several times over the years.

Saint Louis University

Trudy Busch Valentine gave $4 million to back the nursing school, which will be named he Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing. The money will pay for faculty-development programs in the areas of teaching, research, and scholarship.

Busch Valentine graduated from the nursing school in 1980 and has worked as a volunteer nurse at the Salvation Army Residence for Children, Mercy Hospital, and the Visiting Nurse Association Hospice program. She served as chairman of the School of Nursing Executive Advisory Board from 2006 to 2015, and serves on the university’s Board of Trustees.

Her family has a long association with the university. Her mother, Gertrude Buholzer Busch, established an undergraduate scholarship and the Joan Hrubetz Endowed Chair. In 2012, Busch Valentine and her daughter Christina, a 2012 alumna of the School of Nursing, established the Trudy and Christina Busch Valentine Endowed Lecture Series.

Otis College of Art and Design

The late California swimwear designer Anne Cole left $2.5 million to endow the Anne Cole Scholarship Fund, which will provide financial aid to fashion-design majors at Otis. College officials plan to rename the current building housing the fashion-design department as the Anne Cole Building.

Cole was the daughter of 1920s silent film actor Fred Cole, who founded the swimwear company Cole of California. Although she dabbled as an actress in her youth, she threw herself into work at her family’s company in the 1950s. In 1982, she created the Anne Cole swimwear label, where she went on to create the popular tankini swimsuit silhouette in the late 1990s. She served as mentor to many Otis fashion-design students over the years before she died in 2017 at age 90.

University at Buffalo School of Management

David Pfeil gave $1.5 million to create the Kenneth W. Colwell Chair in Accounting and Law, to honor Pfeil’s friend and fellow alumnus Ken Colwell. Pfeil credits Colwell with helping him get through university’s rigorous accounting program and landing his first job in the accounting field.

Pfeil founded Southwest Consulting Associates, a health-care consulting company, in 1989 and led the firm for 25 years until he retired in 2013. He earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the management school in 1972.

Colwell earned a bachelor of arts degree from the school in 1971 and a bachelor of science degree in 1972.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.