$15-Million Donated to Lawrence U. for New Campus Center; Other Gifts

By Maria Di Mento

Four institutions have received big gifts:

• Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wis., has received $15- million from an anonymous donor for a new campus center. The 100,000-square-foot building will replace a 55-year-old facility that the university says it has outgrown. The new center will house dining facilities and meeting space for student organizations and extracurricular activities.

• The Ventura County Community Foundation, in Calif., has received an $11-million bequest from Russell Fischer, a citrus farmer in Camarillo, Calif., who died last summer. Mr. Fischer stipulated in his will that the money be used to establish five separate endowments to support the Camarillo Health Care District’s Care-a-Van transportation program, which helps elderly and disabled people get to and from medical appointments and other destinations; the Camarillo Library; the Odd Fellow Children’s Home, in Gilroy, Calif.; the Salvation Army of Southern California, in Los Angeles, for use in Ventura County; and the Ventura County Red Cross, in Ventura.

• The California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, has received a $10-million bequest from Joseph J. Jacobs, founder of the Jacobs Engineering Group, in Pasadena. The money is being used to establish an institute for molecular engineering for medicine. Mr. Jacobs died in 2004.

• The College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass., has received a $10-million donation from Park B. Smith, founder of a New York textile company that bears his name, and his wife, Linda Johnson Smith. Mr. Smith, a Holy Cross graduate, promised last year to donate the money once other alumni contributed enough to the college’s capital campaign to reach its $200-million fund-raising goal. The college completed the campaign at $216.3-million last month.

Other recent gifts:

Augusta State U. (Ga.): $1-million bequest from Marie Hulbert, a retired high-school biology teacher from Maine, who died last year. The money, which Ms. Hulbert inherited, will endow academic programs.

Bellarmine U. (Louisville, Ky.): $2-million pledge from Angela Mason, the founder of ITS Services, a technology company in Washington, to endow scholarships for needy students. Ms. Mason graduated from Bellarmine in 1980.

Cleveland Museum of Natural History: stock valued at $6.2-million from an anonymous donor for renovations and expansion. The money will also endow staff salaries and create a gallery to showcase the museum’s conservation projects.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Va.): $5-million pledge from David Rockefeller, retired chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, in New York, for endowment. The money will be paid out over two years, and will be used for the museum’s Historic Area programs. Mr. Rockefeller’s father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., established the museum in 1926.

Hill Country Memorial Health System (Fredericksburg, Tex.): $1.3-million from Ed Brune, a retired union supervisor at the Strachan Shipping Company, in Houston, and his wife, Trudy, for a new building to house the hospital’s home-based health-care and hospice offices.

Lake Forest College (Ill.): $1.5-million pledge from John Gates, a senior vice president at the investment firm Smith Barney, in Deerfield, Ill., his wife, Chrissie, and their family, to create a student center for personal and professional development. The college must raise an additional $500,000 to receive the money.

Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): $1-million from James Chris Miller, a land developer in Tyler, Tex., and his wife, Shirley, for scholarships for students who are the children of deceased military personnel and attend any of the clinic’s five schools of biomedical education. Mr. Miller is a retired Air Force colonel.

Menninger Clinic (Houston): $1.3-million bequest from Andrew Bain, a division manager at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, in Springfield, Mo., and his wife, Dorothy, to endow a professorship for education, research, and the care and treatment of schizophrenia, Mr. Bain died in 2002, and Ms. Bain died last year.

Metropolitan Opera (New York): $1-million from Marie Schwartz, a former reporter at The Washington Post, for a contemporary-art gallery to be housed in the opera house’s lobby. Ms. Schwartz serves on the opera company’s Board of Directors. Her husband, Arnold, who was the founder of the now-defunct Paragon Oil Company, in New York, died in 1979.

Military Officers Association of America (Alexandria, Va.): $1-million from James Chris Miller, a land developer in Tyler, Tex., and his wife, Shirley, for college scholarships for the children of deceased military personnel. Mr. Miller is a retired Air Force colonel.

Palm Beach Atlantic U. (West Palm Beach, Fla.): $2.2-million bequest from the residuary trust of Lemuel Boulware, a retired executive of the General Electric Company, in Fairfield, Conn., to build the Warren Library. Mr. Boulware died in 1990.

U. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (Little Rock): $1-million from William E. Clark, chief executive officer of CDI Contractors, in Little Rock, and his wife, Margaret, to establish a professorship in oncology.

Visiting Nurse Association of Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties (Vt.): $1-million from Lois McClure, of Shelburne, Vt., for endowment. Ms. McClure is the widow of Warren J. McClure, who owned the Burlington Free Press, in Vermont.