College in California Gets Windfall; Other Gifts

Several non-profit institutions have received big gifts.

* Two anonymous donors have jointly given $20-million to St. Mary’s College of California, in Moraga, to construct athletics facilities.

* The Segerstrom family of Orange County, Cal., has pledged land valued at approximately $16-million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center to construct a concert hall in Costa Mesa.

The family, which owns the South Coast Plaza retail complex in Costa Mesa, will hand over the deed to the land once the center raises half the funds necessary to build the concert hall. A spokesman for the center said that the total cost of the facility could reach $100-million, and that the funds will be raised entirely from private sources.

The donation was announced by Henry T. Segerstrom, managing partner of C. J. Segerstrom and Sons, and his cousin Jeanette. In 1979, the managing partners of the company — Henry, his mother, Ruth, and his cousin Harold — donated five acres to the Performing Arts Center to build a theater that now bears the family name.

* The Sun Health Foundation, in Sun City, Ariz., has received 353 acres of land valued at $12-million from A. Wallace and Edith Litchfield Denny of Litchfield Park, Ariz. The property will serve as the site of a health-care center and a residence for elderly people.

The foundation, the fund-raising arm for a network of health facilities, cannot sell the land under the terms of the agreement.

Mr. Denny is former chief executive officer of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Mrs. Denny is the daughter of Paul Weeks Litchfield, a former head of Goodyear who founded Litchfield Park in 1920.

* Western Kentucky University, in Bowling Green, has received $10.1-million in commitments from Gordon Ford, an accountant and retired partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, for its business college.

The majority of the gift, $9.5-million, will create an endowment to support scholarships, research, and technological improvements. The remainder of the donation will create a professorship to be named after Mr. Ford’s mother, Mattie, and will augment a scholarship fund that Mr. Ford established in 1992 for accounting and business majors.

* The Diabetes Research Institute, in Hollywood, Fla., has received a $10-million pledge from Rowland and Sylvia Schaefer, chairman and vice-president, respectively, of the fashion-accessories chain Claire’s Stores.

The gift will support the center’s research in islet-cell transplantation. The Schaefers, whose granddaughter has diabetes, have supported the institute in the past, most recently with a $1-million donation in March 1998.

* Smith College, in Northampton, Mass., has received a combined $10-million from two anonymous alumnae to expand and renovate the arts center.

The project is slated to cost $31-million.

Other recent gifts:

American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science-Chicago Region: $1,500,000 from Ralph Silver of Glencoe, Ill., a lawyer and accountant, and his wife, Lois, to endow a professorship in neurogenomics at the Weizmann Institute, in Rehovot, Israel.

Bates College (Me.): $9,000,000 bequest from the estates of Charles F. Phillips of Auburn, Me., a former president of Bates, and his wife, Evelyn, for endowment.

Boston Renaissance Charter School: $1,000,000 from Steven B. Dodge of Boston, chairman of American Tower Corporation, to establish a cafeteria and auditorium and to expand facilities for physical education and the arts. Half of Mr. Dodge’s gift must be matched dollar for dollar by others.

Bowdoin College (Me.): $1,500,000 from an anonymous donor to endow a professorship in Asian studies.

California State U. System: $1,000,000 from Stanley Wang of Fremont, Cal., president of the Pantronix Corporation, to provide cash awards over the next 10 years to outstanding faculty members and administrators.

Carroll College (Wis.): $1,800,000 bequest from the estate of Lillian Haufe Graaskamp of Madison, Wis., whose late husband, Arnold, was vice-president of A. Geo Schultz Company, which made paper boxes, for endowment and for capital improvements to the library.

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin: $1,000,000 from Max McGee of Minneapolis, a radio announcer and former member of the Green Bay Packers football team, and his wife, Denise, for research on diabetes and genetics.

Dana Hall School (Mass.): $1,000,000 bequest from the estate of James Raymond Rinehart of Jacksonville, Fla., a businessman and former administrative vice-president of Hiram College, to endow a professorship.

Emory & Henry College (Va.): Charitable remainder trust valued at $1,000,000 from Allen Rowlett of Pinehurst, N.C., a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, and his wife, Agnes, to help establish the Division of Visual and Performing Arts.

Gannon U. (Pa.): $1,300,000 bequest from the estate of William M. Schuster of Erie, Pa., former owner of Warren Radio, to augment an endowment he and his late wife, Frances, created to support arts programs.

George Mason U. (Va.): $3,200,000 from Arthur Kellar of Fairfax, Va., former chairman of E-Z Communications, and his wife, Elizabeth, for a center on learning disabilities.

Intracoastal Health Systems (Fla.): $1,500,000 from William E. Flaherty of Palm Beach, Fla., and Pebble Beach, Cal., chairman of Horsehead Industries, an industrial-manufacturing company, and his wife, Tina, president of Image Marketing International, to construct a pediatric emergency center at the Richard and Pat Johnson Children’s Hospital.

Morton Plant Mease Health Care Foundation (Fla.): $1,000,000 from Stewart Turley of Belleair, Fla., former chief executive officer of the drug-store chain Eckerd Corporation, and his wife, Linda, a nurse, for a health center to benefit inner-city residents of Orlando, Fla.

Oakes Museum of Natural History (Pa.): $1,000,000 from William Hollinger of Harrisburg, Pa., and his wife, Lucille, former owners of the Blue Mountain Golf Club and Restaurant, to endow this museum now under construction at Messiah College, in Grantham, Pa.

Princeton U. (N.J.): $3,500,000 from Roger S. Berlind of New York, a theater producer and a director of Lehman Brothers Holdings, to expand the McCarter Theatre and its educational programs.

Providence Rotary Charities Foundation (R.I.): $1,000,000 from Alan Shawn Feinstein of Cranston, R.I., a financial adviser and newsletter publisher, to distribute among food banks and soup kitchens throughout the United States. Mr. Feinstein pledged to make the donation if Rotary clubs nationwide raised $2,000,000 for hunger charities; 1,400 clubs raised a total of $2,015,451.

Reinhardt College (Ga.): $1,000,000 from Fred Tarpley of Dalton, Ga., a retired banker, and his wife, Mozelle, a retired teacher, for a new education facility.

Rollins College (Fla.): $1,000,000 from Charles E. Rice of Jacksonville, Fla., former chairman of Barnett Banks, and his wife, Dianne, a former Miss Florida, to construct a bookstore and cafe within the student center.

San Francisco Ballet: $1,500,000 from Phyllis C. Wattis of San Francisco, a philanthropist and great granddaughter of Brigham Young, to support new works.

Sierra Nevada College (Nev.): $7,000,000 from William W. Zink of Incline Village, Nev., a real-estate developer, to construct and endow a library.

Smith College (Mass.): $2,800,000 bequest from the estate of Barbara Richmond of Easthampton, Mass., a philanthropist, to endow a professorship in the humanities and a professorship in the social sciences.

Texas Tech U.: $1,000,000 from Robert Baker of Lubbock, Tex., director of natural sciences at the Museum of Texas Tech, and his wife, Laura, a physician and an associate professor of patient care at the university’s health-sciences center, to endow scientific publications of the museum; $1,000,000 from Jane O. Burns of Lubbock, professor emeritus of accounting, to endow scholarships and a professorship at the College of Business Administration; and $1,000,000 from James Niver of Houston, owner of Sowell and Company, which develops real estate, and his wife, Marguerite, to endow a professorship in finance. Students in the College of Business Administration’s managed-investment-fund course will manage the gift.

U. of Chicago: $5,000,000 from Irving B. Harris of Chicago, chairman of the executive committee of Pittway Corporation, to establish the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.

U. of Missouri at Columbia: $5,000,000 from an anonymous donor to endow three professorships and three chairs at the College of Business and Public Administration.

U. of Northern Colorado: $2,000,000 bequest from the estate of William Earl Hewit of Denver, who worked in his family’s oil business, for a professorship in history and for the Institute for History and Social Science Education.

U. of Scranton (Pa.): $3,000,000 from John E. Brennan of New York, president of Activated Communications, to construct a facility at the Kania School of Management.

U. of Southern California: $2,500,000 from Paul Orfalea of Santa Barbara, Cal., chairman of Kinko’s, for a professorship at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies; $2,000,000 from Robert C. Packard of Los Angeles, a retired lawyer, for unrestricted use at the Law School; and $1,000,000 from Sorrell Trope of Los Angeles, a lawyer, and his wife, Linda, for unrestricted use at the Law School.

U. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas: $1,000,000 bequest from the estate of Gatha (Gay) Burnett of Austin, Tex., whose late husband, William, was a rancher, for arthritis research.