Alumna Investor Gives $25-Million to U. of South Carolina; Other Gifts

Five universities have received big gifts:

* The University of South Carolina at Columbia has received $25-million from Darla D. Moore, a 1975 alumna and president of the Dallas-based investment firm Rainwater Inc., to endow its business school.

The Darla Moore School of Business, as it will be officially known after March 27, is believed to be only the third business school in the country to be named after a woman.

A native South Carolinian, Ms. Moore made her fortune in bankruptcy financing and was once dubbed “the toughest babe” in business by Fortune magazine. Her gift will support scholarships and professorships, and she is expected to be active in creating new programs made possible by her donation.

* The University of California at San Diego has received $15-million from Irwin Jacobs, chairman of Qualcomm, and his wife, Joan, to endow the School of Engineering.

The university has renamed the school in honor of the couple, who established the first privately endowed professorship at the university in 1981. Mr. Jacobs taught computer engineering at the university from 1966 to 1972. He founded Qualcomm, a digital-communications company, in 1985.

* Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., has received $13-million from Abraham Feinberg, a New York businessman, to establish a center for ethics.

The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life is intended to help people learn from historical events. It will support scholarships, undergraduate internships abroad, ethics seminars for professionals in assorted fields, and fellowships. The center will also work with the Jerusalem Foundation to establish a site at Mishkenot Sha’ananim, a residential conference center in Jerusalem.

Mr. Feinberg, the chairman of the Israel-based Central Bottling Company, was chairman of Brandeis’s Board of Trustees from 1954 to 1961.

* The University of California at Los Angeles has received donations totaling approximately $10-million from Lew Wasserman, chairman emeritus of Universal Studios, and his wife, Edie.

The couple earmarked most of the gift, $8.75-million, to endow scholarships for undergraduate students. The Wassermans also donated their home in Palm Springs, Cal., to be used as a site for conferences, meetings, and events.

* An anonymous donor has pledged $10-million to Tufts University, in Medford, Mass., for a campaign to build a new medical facility.

The money will support the university’s Biomedical and Nutrition Research Center, a new 11-story building in downtown Boston that will adjoin the university’s teaching hospital. The university hopes to raise a matching amount from other sources by February 1999, at which time it will break ground on the structure, which is expected to cost $57-million.

Other recent gifts:

Anne Arundel Medical Center Foundation (Md.): $1,000,000 from Hillard Donner of Annapolis, Md., owner of Mills Wine & Spirits, for its campaign for a replacement hospital facility.

Diabetes Research Institute Foundation (Fla.): $2,000,000 from Marc S. Goodman of Brookville, N.Y., president of Kenmar Holdings, to endow a professorship in diabetes research, and $1,000,000 from Rowland Schaefer of Pembroke Pines, Fla., president of Claire’s Stores, and his wife, Sylvia, for cell-transplantation research.

Duke U. (N.C.): $2,500,000 pledge from Larry Taishoff of Naples, Fla., chairman emeritus of Broadcasting and Cable magazine, to refurbish its aquatics facility. The sum is a combination of personal funds and funds from the Taishoff Family Foundation.

Harvard U. (Mass.): Gifts totaling $5,400,000 from the estate of Jack N. Berkman of New York, former chairman of the Associated Group, and from his wife, Lillian, for a professorship in entrepreneurial legal studies at the law school and for its Center for Internet and Society.

Laubach Literacy (N.Y.): $3,800,000 bequest from the estate of Virgina Woods Morell of Menlo Park, Cal., a doctor of education whose grandparents founded Newhall Land & Farming Company, to endow three outreach programs.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles: $1,000,000 from Ron Burkle of Los Angeles, managing partner of Yucaipa Companies, to endow architecture and design programs, and $1,000,000 from an anonymous donor to endow a discretionary fund.

New York Botanical Garden: $1,250,000 from an anonymous donor to endow the directorship of the Institute of Systematic Botany, and $1,000,000 from William C. Steere, Jr., of Darien, Conn., chairman of Pfizer, and his wife, Lynda, for the capital campaign.

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (Cal.): $5,000,000 from Severin Wunderman of Los Angeles, founder of Severin Montres, which makes watches, to create a collection of videotaped testimonies of 1,500 men and women who, as children, survived the Holocaust.

U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: $1,000,000 bequest from the estate of Frank H. Kenan of Durham, N.C., founder of Kenan Oil Company and Kenan Transport Company and trustee at the William R. Kenan, Jr., Charitable Trust, for the department of dramatic art. The gift was directed to the department by Mr. Kenan’s widow, Betty.

U. of South Carolina: $1,400,000 from Brantley Harvey, Jr., of Beaufort, S.C., a lawyer, a former Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina and a former state representative, and his wife, Helen, president of Lowcountry Real Estate, for the law school and for the university’s Columbia, Beaufort, and New River campuses, and $1,100,000 from Miles Loadholt of Barnwell, S.C., a lawyer, and his wife, Ann, a teacher, for the law school and scholarships for students at the Aiken and Salkehatchie campuses.

Union College (N.Y.): $2,066,000 from Stanley G. Peschel of Copake, N.Y., chief executive officer of High Voltage Inc., for unrestricted use.

Washington College (Md.): $1,700,000 bequest from the estate of William E. Kight of Boca Raton, Fla., a chemical engineer and retired chief analyst at Hercules Powder Company, for scholarships for students from Maryland.