First Woman to Join Washington & Jefferson College’s Board Leaves It $50 Million

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Washington & Jefferson College

Anica Donnan Rawnsley left an estimated $50 million to establish and endow a scholarship program, which will be named for Rawnsley and provide need-based support to students from the Washington County, Pa., region where she grew up. Rawnsley was an elementary-school teacher who served on the faculty of Germantown and Abington Friends School and Friends Central in the Philadelphia area.

She was not a Washington & Jefferson alumna, but almost all of the men in her family graduated from the then all-male college, and she kept close ties to the college throughout her lifetime. Rawnsley earned a bachelor’s degree at Goucher College and a master’s degree in education at Bank Street College of Education. In 1975, she became the first woman to join the Washington & Jefferson’s Board of Trustees, and the college awarded her an honorary doctorate in public service in 2003. She died in August at 94.

University of Buffalo

Russ Agrusa pledged $40 million to support programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is directing half of the total -— $20 million -— toward kick-starting the construction of a new engineering building, which will be named Russell L. Agrusa Hall. The remaining $20 million will go toward supporting other long-term needs within the engineering school.

Agrusa founded Iconics, a software-development company in Foxborough, Mass., that specializes in real-time data acquisition, visualization, and control. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the university in 1976 and started his career at Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

University of Connecticut

Elisabeth DeLuca gave $40 million to support a range of programs within the School of Nursing, including patient-centered practice, technology-based care, and interdisciplinary research. The money will also back scholarships for nursing students and the construction of a new building to house the nursing school.

DeLuca is a former nurse who earned her nursing degree from the university in 1969. Early in her career, she worked at Bridgeport Hospital, in Conn., and was promoted to head nurse of Intensive Services there. She later left her nursing career to help run the Subway fast-food franchise company, which was co-founded by her late husband, Frederick DeLuca. He died in 2015.

University of California at Los Angeles

Professors Donald and Sherie Morrison pledged real estate valued at $15.4 million. Proceeds from the sale of the property will be shared equally among the UCLA Anderson School of Management, UCLA Athletics, the UCLA College Division of Life Sciences, and the UCLA Faculty Club.

Sherie Morrison is a distinguished professor emerita and a former chair of microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics at the university. Her research focused on better understanding how antibodies function; she developed antibody technology that serves as the basis for medicines that treat autoimmune illnesses. Don Morrison is a professor emeritus of marketing and the former William E. Leonhard Professor of Management at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Augustana University

Dean and Rosemarie Buntrock gave $13.8 million to establish the Buntrock Scholars Program, which will provide scholarships to Augustana students who are members of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregations throughout the Midwest.

The scholarships will benefit a minimum of 30 students beginning next fall, and as many as 120 students by fall 2028. The scholarship will cover half of a student’s tuition at Augustana up to $12,000 and will be renewable for up to an additional three years to help students cover the cost of a four-year degree.

Dean Buntrock founded and is a former CEO of Waste Management, a waste-disposal company headquartered in Houston. He did not attend the college, which is in Sioux Falls, S.D., but he grew up in nearby Columbia, S.D., and is related to Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Augustana’s president.

Virginia Tech

Catharine and Preston White gave $10 million to create the Preston and Catharine White Endowed Diversity Scholarship, which when fully operational will provide scholarships of $5,000 to $7,500 to approximately 70 to 80 students each year.

Priority will be given to in-state applicants who have participated in or been identified through Virginia Tech’s Black College Institute, an academic summer-enrichment program for high-school juniors and seniors that is open to students from any race who wish to participate, and to students who demonstrate an interest and commitment to the African American student experience by participating in organizations such as the Black Student Alliance, Black Organizations Council, or similar officially recognized student organizations.

Preston White graduated from Virginia Tech in 1963 and went on to found Century Concrete, which specializes in large-scale construction such as airport paving, seawalls, water-treatment plants, high-rise buildings, and other building projects. He sold the company last year.

American University in Armenia

Sonia and Zaven Akian gave $9 million to support the construction of a building to house the university’s science and engineering programs on its campus in Yerevan, Armenia. The new building will be named for the Akians and will be part of a complex of new structures, including buildings to house the humanities and social-science departments and the university’s arts programs.

Zaven Paul Akian was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and emigrated to the United States in 1960 to attend the New York University School of Engineering. He later transferred to Adelphi University to study mathematics and physics. He graduated from Adelphi in 1964 and then attended graduate school at the University of California at Los Angeles, and also served in the U.S. Army Reserve while there.

He owns and serves as chairman of Integra Technologies, a semiconductor company with research centers in California, Arizona, and Armenia. Earlier in his career he ran a number of companies including Western Filter and Puroflow, hydraulic-filtration systems manufacturers for the aerospace industry, both of which he sold in 2008 to the Donaldson Company. He has served on the university’s Board of Trustees since 2012 and leads its finance committee.

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