California State U. at Northridge Receives $38-Million Art Pledge; Other Recent Gifts

Four organizations have received big gifts or pledges:

• California State University at Northridge has received a pledge of Chinese antiquities valued at up to $38-million from Roland Tseng, a Northern California entrepreneur and inventor. Among other ventures, Mr. Tseng founded China Media Services, a syndication company that brings U.S. television programming to China. He promised to provide all the items over the next four years, and has already donated works valued at $9.5-million, including a 3,000-year-old gold and bronze ritual vessel estimated to be worth $5.5-million.
• Carnegie Hall, in New York, has received $24.7-million from Sanford I. Weill, chairman of Carnegie Hall and former chief executive officer of Citigroup, in New York, and his wife, Joan. Mr. Weill, whose gift will be used to establish the Weill Music Institute, has also agreed to match donations to an endowment for the institute, which runs music-education programs. Mr. Weill will match donations made through the end of the year.
• The University of Wyoming, in Laramie, has received a gift of real estate whose market value is $18.5-million from the late Clara Toppan. Ms. Toppan graduated from the business school in 1931 and became Wyoming’s first female certified public accountant. The 160-acre ranch will be sold and Ms. Toppan earmarked the proceeds for an endowment fund, to maintain and preserve the rare-book library, and for scholarships.
• The Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, in Quantico, Va., has received $10-million from the family of the late Alfred Lerner, a Marine veteran and founder of the MBNA Corporation (Wilmington, Del.), to help create the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Mr. Lerner served in the Marine Corps from 1955 to 1957 and died in October 2002 at age 69. The gift was made to support a capital campaign for the museum, which will be part of the Marine Corps Heritage Center to be constructed in Quantico.

Other recent gifts:

Nazareth College (Rochester, N.Y.): $1.4-million bequest from the estate of Elizabeth M. George, of White Plains, N.Y., a longtime IBM employee and a 1941 graduate of the college, to renovate a residence hall.

Nevada Cancer Institute (Las Vegas): $1-million from Tim Poster, president and chief executive officer of Poster Financial Group (Las Vegas), to support the institution’s cancer research, education, and patient care.

North Carolina State U. (Raleigh): $5-million from Dorothy Dent Park, the widow of Roy H. Park, founder of Park Communications (Ithaca, N.Y.), and a 1931 graduate, to support a new alumni center.

Purdue Research Foundation (West Lafayette, Ind.): $3.25-million from Robert Bowen, founder of Bowen Engineering Corporation (Fishers, Ind.), and his wife, Terry, for a new civil-engineering research laboratory. Mr. Bowen earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at Purdue in 1962.

Purdue U. (West Lafayette, Ind.): $10-million pledge from B.J. Palmore, who received a bachelor’s degree from the university in 1959 and is a senior vice president at USB Financial Services (New York), and his wife, Karen, a vice president at USB Financial Services; $7-million — $2-million outright and $5-million in an estate — from Roger B. Gatewood, of St. Petersburg, Fla., who received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1968 and is president of Westfield USA, a home-building company, for the School of Mechanical Engineering; $5-million from Patrick Wang, who received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering and is chief executive officer of Johnson Electric (Hong Kong), for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; $4-million from an anonymous donor for the new Visual and Performing Arts Building, $2-million of which will be given now and the remainder will match $2-million raised by the School of Liberal Arts; $2.5-million from Donald W. Feddersen, who received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1956, and his wife, Catherine, owner and managing director of Burke Capital, an investment-management firm in Atlanta, for the School of Mechanical Engineering; and $2-million from William B. Elmore, who received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1974 and a master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1975, co-founder and general partner of Foundation Capital (Menlo Park, Calif.), and his wife, Mary Jane, who received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1976, a partner of Institutional Venture Partners (Menlo Park), for a laboratory in the Birck Nanotechnology Center.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington (Portland, Ore.): $1-million from an anonymous donor to construct new facilities and expand existing ones, and for the endowment.

Sonoma State U. (Rohnert Park, Calif.): $3-million from Evert Person, former owner and publisher of The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.), and his wife, Norma, for a new music cen-ter.

U. of California at Santa Barbara, University Libraries: $1.7-million from William R. Moran, a retired executive at Union Oil Company (El Segundo, Calif.), to complete the Victor Project, a multivolume encyclopedia cataloging all the recordings made from 1900 to 1950 by the company that became RCA Victor. Mr. Moran is a co-author of the encyclopedia.

U. of Southern California (Los Angeles): $8-million from David Dornsife, vice president of the Hedco Foundation (Lafayette, Calif.) and a 1965 graduate of the business school, and his wife, Dana, to establish the Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center in the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.

U. of Wisconsin at Milwaukee Foundation: $1.5-million from Roger L. Fitzsimonds, retired chairman and chief executive officer at Firstar Corporation, now U.S. Bank (Minneapolis), and a 1960 graduate of the university, to support faculty and research at the School of Business Administration.

Western Kentucky U. (Bowling Green): $2-million pledge from William M. McCormack, a 1957 alumnus and retired physician, and his wife, Ann, to establish two endowed professorships in the Ogden College of Science and Engineering.