Boston-Area Jewish Schools Get $45-Million; Other Gifts

Several institutions have received large gifts:

• An anonymous group of families from the Boston metropolitan area has donated $45-million to Combined Jewish Philanthropies, in Boston, to improve educational programs at local Jewish day schools. The nonprofit organization will oversee the distribution of $10-million each to the Maimonides School, in Brookline; the Rashi School, in Newton; and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston, also in Newton. The remaining $15-million will be divided among the other 11 Jewish day schools in metropolitan Boston, with a portion earmarked for expanded student aid.
• St. Edward’s University, in Austin, Tex., has received a $10.5-million bequest from John Brooks Williams, a businessman in Houston, for a natural-sciences center.
• The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, has received a $10-million pledge from James and Gail Petty Riepe for maintenance, activities, and services at a university dormitory. Mr. Riepe is chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees and vice chairman of T. Rowe Price Associates, in Baltimore.
• Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind., has received $10-million from Norman and Carol Weldon, and their son Thomas, for its biomedical-engineering department. The gift will be used to hire faculty members, support undergraduate and graduate students, and pay for other programs. Norman Weldon, who lives in Evergreen, Colo., is co-founder of the Corvita Corporation, a medical-device company that was later sold to Pfizer. Thomas Weldon is co-founder and chairman of the Innovation Factory, which provides business services and support for medical groups in Atlanta.

Other recent gifts:

Boston College High School: $1-million from Thomas F. and Mary Shields for scholarships and financial aid. Mr. Shields is chief executive officer of the Shields Healthcare Group, in Quincy, Mass., and a former trustee of the school.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles): $5-million from the actor Mel Gibson to reimburse the hospital for medical care provided to children from countries where the services they need are unavailable or unaffordable.

City U. of New York, Bernard M. Baruch College: $2.5-million from Marvin Antonowsky, former executive vice president of Columbia Pictures, for a performing-arts complex; $2-million from William F. Aldinger III, chief executive officer of HSBC North America Holdings, in Prospect Heights, Ill., to endow a chair in banking and finance; and $2-million from Lawrence Zicklin, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York U. and a senior fellow at the U. of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and his wife, Carol, to endow the Center for Corporate Integrity.

Greater Cincinnati Foundation: $3.3-million bequest from Dorothy G. Klasen, of Cincinnati, to establish two unrestricted funds. Mrs. Klasen, who worked for the Internal Revenue Service, died last year at age 89.

Indiana U. (Bloomington): $1-million from Andy and Marylynn Gladstein for programs at the School of Medicine that help children and families with special needs and that prepare U.S. and Kenyan doctors to better respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. The gift will also support students who play sports and endow a scholarship. The Gladsteins own Tony Roma’s restaurants in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Lexington and Louisville, Ky.

The Johns Hopkins U. (Baltimore): $4-million from an anonymous donor for an auditorium and connecting building at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, and $2-million from Joseph R. Reynolds, a university trustee, to endow a professorship at the Whiting School of Engineering. Mr. Reynolds is chairman emeritus of FTI Consulting, in Annapolis, Md.

Mattel Children’s Hospital at the University of California at Los Angeles: $5-million from the actor Mel Gibson to repay the hospital for services provided to children from countries where the care they need is unavailable or unaffordable.

National Parks Conservation Association (Washington) and the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Natural Resources Center (Ann Arbor, Mich.): $1-million from Peter M. Wege to organize a coalition of groups advocating the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes. The gift from Mr. Wege, whose family helped found the Steelcase Furniture Company, in Grand Rapids, Mich., supplements a $4-million grant from the Wege Foundation, also in Grand Rapids.

Purdue U. (West Lafayette, Ind.): $4-million from an anonymous donor for the new visual- and performing-arts building; $3.65-million from Susan Bulkeley Butler, a retired consulting executive, to endow a chair in the Center of Leadership Excellence; $3-million from Scott M. Niswonger, chairman and chief executive officer of the Landair and Forward Air Corporations, for a new aviation-technology building; and $2-million from Sally K. Mason, a university provost, and Kenneth A. Mason, a university lecturer, for the Discovery Learning Center.

Stanford U. (Calif.): $3-million from Bill and Donnalisa Barnum for renovations needed to open a new education center. The Barnums, of Pacific Palisades, Calif., are graduates of the university.

Temple U. (Philadelphia): $5-million from Howard Gittis, chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees and vice chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, in New York, for its Fox School of Business and Management. Approximately $1.5-million is earmarked for an endowed professorship in entrepreneurial finance, while the remaining $3.5-million is unrestricted.

U. of Wyoming (Laramie): $3-million from Erivan and Helga Haub for its environment and natural-resources school. Mr. Haub is chief executive officer of the Tengelmann Group, a retail organization based in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany.