$22.6-Million Pledged to Utah College; Other Gifts

Three institutions have received big gifts:

• Larry H. Miller, a Salt Lake City entrepreneur who owns the Utah Jazz basketball team, and his wife, Gail, have pledged to provide land and construction costs worth a total of $22.6-million to Salt Lake Community College. Most of the money will go to the university’s new Police Safety Training Center, which will provide housing and training for police officers, firefighters, sheriffs, and prison guards. A portion of the gift will also be used to build a culinary-arts school. Mr. Miller and his wife plan to build the center on land they own, and then donate the new facilities to the college once construction of the buildings is complete.
• The United States Military Academy, in West Point, N.Y., has received a $15-million pledge from William Foley, chairman and chief executive officer of Fidelity National Financial Corporation, a title-insurance and real-estate-services company in Jacksonville, Fla., and his wife, Carol, to pay for the design and construction of a new athletic-training facility. Mr. Foley is a 1967 graduate of the academy and was a captain in the Air Force.
• Carle Foundation Hospital, in Urbana, Ill., has received $10-million from Doug and Linda Mills. Mr. Mills is chairman and chief executive officer of First Busey Corporation, a financial holding company in Urbana, and Ms. Mills serves as a board member of Busey Bank, also in Urbana. The money will be used to create the Mills Breast Cancer Institute, a breast cancer clinic and research facility scheduled to open in 2008.

Other recent gifts:

California State U. at Northridge: $7.3-million bequest from Mary Bayramian, an art teacher who taught at San Fernando High School, in Calif., and her husband, Jack, who was a technician for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, in the San Fernando Valley, to endow two scholarship programs. Ms. Bayramian died in 2002, and Mr. Bayramian died in January 2005. The couple made their fortune investing in real estate.

Colorado School of Mines (Golden): $3-million from John Lockridge, a California gas developer, and his wife, Erika, a film producer, to pay for a recreation center.

DePaul U. (Chicago): $2-million from Douglas Crocker II, retired president and chief executive officer of Equity Residential Properties Trust, in Chicago, and his wife, Cynthia, senior vice president for investor relations and corporate communications at Equity Residential and Manufactured Home Communities, in Chicago. The money will endow the directorship of the Real Estate Center at DePaul.

Fashion Institute of Technology (New York): $1-million bequest from Alfred Z. Solomon, co-founder with his sister, Janet A. Sloane, of Madcaps, a wholesale distributor of high-fashion women’s hats, in New York. The money will establish the Alfred Z. Solomon – Janet A. Sloane Endowment Fund, which will be used to create an accessories collection at the Museum at FIT. Mr. Solomon died in September, approximately 10 years after his sister.

Forest Park Forever (St. Louis): $5-million from Jack C. Taylor, the retired founder of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, in St. Louis, and his family, for the Forest Park Trust Maintenance Endowment, which pays for the upkeep and preservation of the 130-year-old park.

Freed-Hardeman U. (Henderson, Tenn.): $1-million pledge from John Brown, the chairman and former chief executive officer of Stryker Corporation, a medical-products and services company, in Kalamazoo, Mich., and his wife, Rosemary Kopel Brown, a university trustee and retired math and science teacher, to pay for a new library. Mr. and Ms. Brown are both 1955 graduates of the university.

George Washington U. Law School (Washington): $3-million from James F. Humphreys, head of James F. Humphreys & Associates, a law firm in Charleston, W.Va., and Washington, to create the Humphreys Complex Litigation Center and endow faculty positions. Mr. Humphreys earned his law degree at the school.

Joliet Junior College Foundation (Ill.): $2.2-million bequest from Edward Cwiklo, an engineer at General Electric, in Schenectady, N.Y., for unrestricted use.

Mexican Museum (San Francisco): $3-million pledge from Scott Salazar Myers, president and chief executive officer of Del Valle Homes, in Modesto, Calif., to help pay for a new building.

Orange Coast College (Costa Mesa, Calif.): A racing yacht valued at more than $1-million from John B. Kilroy, chairman of Kilroy Reality, in Los Angeles, to be used by students at the college’s School of Sailing and Seamanship, in Newport Beach, Calif. The yacht, the Kialoa III, was a prize-winning racing sloop in the 1970s.

Pace U. (New York): $5-million from Helen Wilson, a businesswoman in Cape Cod, Mass., and her husband, Grant, a private investor, for the Helen and Grant Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship. The new center will offer advisory services, courses, and research facilities for nonprofit organizations, and courses for Pace students.

Phoenix Family Museum (Ariz.): $1-million pledge from Robert Sarver, chairman and chief executive officer of Western Alliance Bancorp, in Las Vegas, and a managing partner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, for renovations to a 1912 schoolhouse that is being turned into a children’s museum.

State U. of New York College at Potsdam: $1-million from the estate of Frederick B. Kilmer, science director at Johnson & Johnson, then in New Brunswick, N.J., from 1888 to 1933, through a relative of Mr. Kilmer’s who wished to remain anonymous. The money will be used to create several scholarship funds, pay for renovations to the dining facility, and upgrade an academic building.

U. of Illinois at Chicago: $8-million pledge from George Irwin, an orthopedist and president of the Center of Outpatient Medicine, in Bloomington, Ill., and his wife, Kathy, to the College of Medicine. The majority of the gift is unrestricted, but $1-million will be used to partially endow a professorship in orthopedics. The university also received a $2-million pledge from Sidney L. Port, a Chicago businessman, to establish a new language and culture learning center. The center will be named for Mr. Port’s daughter, Sandi Port Errant, who died last year.

U. of Missouri at Kansas City: $3-million from Henry W. Bloch, co-founder of H&R Block Incorporated, a tax-preparation and personal-finance company, based in Kansas City, to endow the Henry W. Bloch Chair in Financial Services, and the Bloch Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, in the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration.

U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: $1.5-million fron Scott Edwards, executive vice president and Carolinas group credit officer for Sun Trust Banks, in Durham, N.C., to endow the Kenan-Flagler Business School, to endow scholarship funds in the athletics department, and for academic scholarships for needy students. Mr. Edwards is a 1967 graduate of the university.

U. of Oregon (Eugene): $6.5-million from Lorry Lokey, founder and chief executive officer of Business Wire, a news service in San Francisco, Calif. The bulk of the gift, $4.5-million, will be used to expand the journalism program, now located on the Eugene campus, to its Portland campus. The remaining $2-million will go toward renovating the university’s music building.

Warner Southern College (Lake Wales, Fla.): $1-million from an anonymous donor for program support.