$15-Million Promised to Dance Group; Other Gifts

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Foundation has received a $15-million pledge from Joan and Sanford I. Weill for its capital campaign, which will support the construction of a new dance center and add to the group’s endowment. The new building, in Manhattan, will be named for Mrs. Weill, who is chairwoman of the theater’s board. Mr. Weill is chairman of Citigroup. A portion of the donation may come through the Weill Family Foundation, in New York.

The following nonprofit institutions have also received large gifts:

Benedictine U. (Lisle, Ill.): $2-million from Michael Birck, a co-founder of Tellabs, in Chicago, and his wife, Kay, to pay for the construction of a science building that was completed this year; and $1.5-million from Joseph Kindlon, of Chicago, who owned a shipping company, and his wife, Bess, to help construct a classroom and library building.

DePaul U. (Chicago): $1-million from William E. Hay, president of Hay & Company, a management-consulting company in Chicago, and his wife, Mary Pat Gannon Hay, for the Saint Vincent de Paul Leadership Project.

Greenville Technical College (S.C.): $2-million from Jack Tate, who founded Baby Superstore, in Greenville, which was later acquired by Toys ‘R Us, to build an additional campus for the college in northwestern Greenville County.

Hollins U. (Roanoke, Va.): $1-million from Janet Wittan Spear, of Gastonia, N.C., an alumna who ran a flower shop in Philadelphia, for the biology department.

Lawrence U. (Appleton, Wis.): $2.5-million bequest from Marjorie M. Freund, of Washington, a retired librarian at the Library of Congress and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who died last year, to endow a scholarship fund.

Michigan State U. (East Lansing): $4-million from Geoffrey N. Fieger, a lawyer with Fieger, Fieger, Kenney & Johnson, in Southfield, Mich., to create an institute for trial law at the law school.

Pitzer College (Claremont, Calif.): $2.5-million from Nicholas Pritzker, of Chicago, the president of the Hyatt Development Corporation, and his wife, Susan, the chair of the college’s board of trustees, to establish a scholarship fund.

Agnes Scott College (Decatur, Ga.): $1-million from Joseph R. Gladden Jr., an executive vice president at the Coca-Cola Company and chairman of the college’s board of trustees, and his wife, Sarah (Sally) Bynum Gladden, an alumna, for a capital campaign.