Cornell University and Kenyon College Each Win $25-Million; Other New Gifts

Six institutions have received big gifts:

• Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., has received $25-million from Peter Meinig, chief executive officer of HM International, a management and holding company in Tulsa, Okla., his wife, Nancy, and their family, to support faculty awards in life-sciences research. Each faculty member who is granted the award will receive approximately $300,000 each year for five years. The Meinigs are both Cornell alumni: Ms. Meinig graduated in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in human ecology, and her husband received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1961.
• Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, has received an anonymous pledge of $25-million to build a visual-arts facility and renovate and expand Peirce Hall. The new arts building will house a permanent art collection, art exhibitions, and art-history programs.
• The University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medicine, has received a pledge of $22-million from James A. Grant, founder of Austin Bio-Med Lab, a blood-plasma collection and distribution center in Texas, and his wife, Marion, to support research on immune-system diseases. Their gift will establish a grant program for research in basic and applied immunity, and endow two professorships in immunology. Dr. Grant graduated from the university in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in medicine.
• The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, in Tampa, Fla., has received a pledge of $20.4-million from Donald A. Adam, chief executive officer of American Momentum Bank, in Tampa, to support skin-cancer research at the Comprehensive Melanoma Research Center. Mr. Adam is a melanoma survivor.
• The University of California at San Francisco has received a bequest of $14-million from the estate of E. Dixon Heise, retired vice president of Blake, Moffitt and Towne, a paper company in San Francisco, to endow a professorship in oncology and support research, teaching, and patient care at the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. Mr. Heise died last year at age 89.
• The University of California at Santa Barbara has received $12.5-million from Betty Elings Wells, a real-estate investor and property manager in Goleta, Calif., and her former husband, Virgil Elings, co-founder and retired chairman of Digital Instruments, a nanotechnology company in Santa Barbara, to support research at the California NanoSystems Institute. Mr. Elings was a professor of physics at the university for 21 years.

Other recent gifts:

Hollins U. (Roanoke, Va.): $2-million from Sandra Frazier, owner of Tandem Public Relations, in Louisville, Ky., and her family, to endow a professorship in history and support student and faculty research and faculty salaries. Ms. Frazier graduated from Hollins in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in history.

Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation (Des Moines): $1-million from Denny Elwell, chairman of the Denny Elwell Company, a commercial real-estate development firm in Ankeny, Iowa, and his wife, Candy, to renovate a building for use as a food-judging and display facility for the state fair.

Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (Allentown, Pa.): $2-million pledge from Bill Grube, founder of Night Vision Equipment Company, in Allentown, and his wife, Phyllis, to endow a professorship in pediatric subspecialties.

LPGA Foundation (Daytona Beach, Fla.): $1-million from Dolores Hope, widow of the comedian Bob Hope, who died in 2003, to support a fund that provides financial assistance to needy members of the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association and others in the golf industry.

Michigan Technological U. (Houghton): $6.3-million pledge from Richard Robbins, president of the Robbins Group, a civil-engineering research and development company in Seattle, and his wife, Bonnie. Most of the pledge, $6-million, will endow three professorships, in sustainable manufacturing and design, sustainable use of materials, and sustainable management of the environment. The remaining $300,000 will help build a new home for the Seaman Mineral Museum and support the university’s ski trails and hill. Mr. Robbins graduated from Michigan Tech in 1956 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. The university also received $1.1-million from William Jackson, founder of CableAmerica Corporation, a telecommunications company in Phoenix, and his wife, Gloria, to endow a professorship that will focus on information technology and entrepreneurship, and to recruit a faculty member to fill the position. Mr. Jackson graduated from the university in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Sanford Health (Sioux Falls, S.D.): $1-million from Mike Miller, a player for the Memphis Grizzlies professional basketball team, and his wife, Jennifer, to support the Sanford Children’s Hospital.

Santa Clara U. (Calif.): $5-million challenge gift from Lorry I. Lokey, founder and chairman of Business Wire, a San Francisco company that distributes press releases, to support the university’s new “learning commons,” technology center, and library.

Spring Hill College (Mobile, Ala.): $6-million from Nan Altmayer and John and Mary Lou Barter to help restore the college’s administration building and replace a cupola on the building, which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1916. Ms. Altmayer’s late husband, Jay, was a real-estate developer in the Mobile area. Mr. Barter graduated from Spring Hill in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree. Ms. Barter received her bachelor’s degree in 1970 in elementary education.

Swedish Covenant Hospital (Chicago): $2-million unrestricted gift from Lila Mae Bornhoeft, in honor of her late husband, Wallace, a retired accountant in Willamette. Mr. Bornhoeft died in 2003 at the age of 92.

U. of California at San Diego: $6-million from Conrad Prebys, president of Progress Construction and Management, in San Diego, to support the university’s new music center; and $2.5-million from Ellen Revelle, widow of Roger Revelle, a prominent oceanographer and one of the earliest climate-change researchers, and their family, to endow a professorship in environmental science. Mr. Revelle, who died in 1991, was professor of science and public policy at the university.

U. of Florida (Gainesville): $2-million from William G. Lassiter Jr., director of W.G. Lassiter Properties, a real-estate development company in Palm Beach, Fla., and his wife, Aneice, to endow two professorships — in building construction and in pediatrics with an emphasis on congenital heart disease — and a fund for pediatric-diabetes research.

U. of Nevada at Reno: $3.2-million bequest from Paul A. Leonard, retired editor of the Nevada State Journal, in Reno, and his wife, Gwen, to endow scholarships at the university’s journalism school and a professorship in ethics and writing in journalism. Mr. Leonard, who died in 1987, graduated from the journalism school in 1936, and Ms. Leonard, who graduated in 1937, died last year at age 89.

— Compiled by Anne W. Howard

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