Arizona Business School to Get $60-Million; OtherNew Gifts

Four higher-education institutions have received large gifts:

• Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, in Glendale, Ariz., next month will receive $60-million from Rita Garvin and her husband, Samuel, the founder and chief executive officer of Continental Promotion Group, a commercial-fulfillment business in Scottsdale, Ariz. The institution, which will be renamed Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, will use the gift for academic programs, faculty support, and scholarships.
• The University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, has received $52-million from Erna Viterbi and her husband, Andrew, a co-founder of Qualcomm, a corporation that has developed many digital and wireless technologies. The gift is earmarked for the School of Engineering. Mr. Viterbi received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the university in 1962.
• Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H., has received $22-million from William H. Neukom, chair of the law firm Preston Gates & Ellis, in Seattle, and former executive vice president of law and corporate affairs at the Microsoft Corporation, in Redmond, Wash., to establish an institute for computational science. Mr. Neukom is a trustee of the college and a 1964 graduate.
• The College of Business Administration at Texas State University at San Marcos has received $20-million from Miriam McCoy and her husband, Emmett, retired chairman and chief executive officer of McCoy’s Building Supply Centers, in San Marcos. The money will be used to endow professorships and scholarships, and for student and faculty support.

Other recent gifts:

Austin College (Sherman, Tex.): $1-million from Caroline Elbert Taylor and her husband, Kenneth, retired president and chief executive officer of Taylor Packing Company (Wyalusing, Pa.), for scholarships. Ms. Taylor graduated from the college in 1966.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Va.): $1.5-million from Abby and George O’Neill, of Oyster Bay, N.Y., to endow the directorship of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. The O’Neills are former trustees of the foundation, and Ms. O’Neill is a granddaughter of Mr. Rockefeller.

Emory U. (Atlanta): $5-million from W. Cliff Oxford, founder and former chief executive officer of STI Knowledge (Atlanta) and 1994 graduate of the university, to endow the executive M.B.A. program at the Goizueta Business School.

Iowa State U. Foundation (Ames): $6.5-million bequest from Herta Beatty and her husband, Richard, a lawyer in Des Moines, for a student-loan fund. Mr. Beatty graduated from Iowa State in 1938 and died in 1994. Ms. Beatty died in 2003.

Nevada Humane Society (Reno): $1-million from Link Piazzo, former owner of Sportsman, a sporting-goods store in Reno, and KTVN-TV, also in Reno, for a new animal center.

Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (Rootstown): $3-million from the family of the late Chatrchai Watanakunakorn, a professor of internal medicine at the college and hospital epidemiologist and chief of infectious diseases at St. Elizabeth Health Center, in Youngstown, Ohio. The gift will be used to endow a chair in microbiology and immunology, and to create a lecture series.

St. John’s U. (Collegeville, Minn.): $10-million from Joyce and Bill Sexton, of Incline Village, Nev., and their four children, to endow a scholarship fund, to support athletics, and to build a guesthouse. Mr. Sexton, who graduated from the university in 1955, is a former owner and partner of Old Northwest Agents, an insurance brokerage in Minneapolis.

Southern Methodist U. (Dallas): $1-million from Jeanne Roach Johnson, a private investor in Dallas, for new pianos and to endow the piano program in the Meadow School of the Arts.

U. of Florida (Gainesville): $2.5-million from Nadine M. McGuire and her husband, William, chairman and chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group, in Minneapolis, for theater and dance facilities at the College of Fine Arts.

— Compiled by Julia Green