U. of South Florida Gets $10 Million, and the Kinsey Institute Receives $2 Million for Human Sexuality Research (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

University of Houston

An anonymous donor pledged $50 million to hire more faculty and to establish and endow four institutes that will address challenges in the areas of energy, infrastructure, precision medicine, and global engagement. The donor has asked the university to raise an additional $50 million from other donors.

The four new institutes are the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Energy Security, the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure and Smart Cities, the Institute for Precision Medicine for Population Health, and the Institute for Global Engagement.

University of South Florida Foundation

Jugal and Manju Taneja gave $10 million through their Taneja Family Foundation to name the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy and relocate the pharmacy college to a new building.

Jugal Taneja is a pharmaceuticals executive and investor who served as chairman of GeoPharma, Inc., the family’s Largo, Fla., company that manufactured and distributed dietary supplements, generic drugs, and health and beauty products under the name Innovative Health Products. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011.

University of Washington Law School

John Diehl left $3.75 million to have the UW Law School establish the John Diehl Endowed Fellowship, which will support graduates pursuing public-interest environmental law across a range of areas, including natural-resource conservation, wilderness protection, and environmental health.

Diehl was a real-estate investor who earlier in his career taught philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and at the University of Minnesota. He later worked as a paralegal. He lived in Shelton, Wash., and died in 2016 at 73.

Old Dominion University

Joan Brock donated $3 million to support the hiring on an executive director to lead the university’s Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience. Under an agreement with the city of Norfolk, Va., the executive director of the institute will also serve as the city’s senior resilience strategist.

The new institute will operate as a national center for the science and practice of coastal resilience.

Brock, who earned a master of arts in humanities degree from Old Dominion, is the widow of Macon Brock Jr., who co-founded the Dollar Tree Store chain of discount retailers. He died in 2017 at 75. The couple gave $1 million to the university several years ago for Brock Commons, an outdoor amphitheater.

Kinsey Institute at Indiana University

Scott Schurz gave $2 million to create the Kinsey Institute Bicentennial Endowed Chair and expand the institute’s research and education programs on human sexuality and relationships.

Schurz is chairman emeritus of Hoosier-Times and chairman of his media company, Schurz Communications. He previously served as publisher and editor-in-chief of the Bloomington Herald-Times, the Bedford Times-Mail, the Martinsville Reporter, the Mooresville Times, and the Beach Grove Southside Times.

Pennsylvania State University

Andrew and Katherine Kartalis pledged $2.5 million to build two new research and classroom spaces in the College of Engineering’s West Campus, and to renovate the historic Sackett Building.

Andrew Kartalis co-founded Concord Hotels, a hotel development and management company. He previously served in the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps as a commissioned officer for 21 years. He earned a civil engineering degree from Penn State in 1954.

The Kartalises gave $1.5 million to the university in 2103 to support American military veterans studying engineering through a program called VETS, as well as program and laboratory support for the Bernard M. Gordon Learning Factory. Katherine Kartalis is a retired teacher.

McPherson College

Richard and Melanie Lundquist donated $1 million to support the college’s automotive-restoration program, widely believed to be the only four-year bachelor’s degree program for automobile-restoration technology in the United States.

Richard Lundquist leads Continental Development Corporation, a commercial real-estate and management company in El Segundo, Calif., and Melanie Lundquist is a former speech pathologist. The couple have given extensively to public-school efforts in Los Angeles, as well as to health care organizations, and have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors three times over the years.

They said in a news release that they gave to the automotive program to recognize the work of the renowned car restorer, Paul Russell, who has hired several McPherson College graduates. Russell’s company restored the Lundquists’ 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C SS Figoni and Falaschi Teardrop Cabriolet.

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