Gifts Roundup: George and Amal Clooney Give $1 Million to Fight Extremism

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by The Chronicle:

Dakota State University

Three donors — Denny Sanford and Miles and Lisa Beacom — together gave $30 million to pay for cybersecurity education and research. The money will go toward new laboratories, scholarships, and additional faculty and staff.Mr. Sanford owns First Premier Bank and Premier Bankcard. Mr. Beacom is chief executive of Premier Bankcard. He graduated from the university in 1981.The university’s College of Computing will be renamed the Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences.

University of San Francisco

Gordon Getty pledged $15 million to create an honors college. Of the total, $7 million will endow scholarships for students in the college; $6 million will pay for start-up costs, student research, and study-abroad and mentoring programs. The remaining $2 million will endow visiting artists and scholars. Mr. Getty, a venture capitalist and classical-music composer, earned an English degree from the university in 1956.The college is scheduled to open next year and will be named for the donor’s father, J. Paul Getty, the founder of the Getty Oil fortune.

Texas A&M University Foundation

Dorothy McFerrin and her late husband, Arthur, gave $10 million for the Mays Business School’s Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship, which will be named for the donors.Mr. McFerrin died this month after a struggle with leukemia. He founded KMCO, a chemical-processing and manufacturing company, and KMTEX a chemical-distillation business.He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the university and was a longtime donor to many programs there.

Iowa State University

Ann Gerdin gave $7 million through the Gerdin Charitable Foundation for the College of Business.Ms. Gerdin and her late husband, Russell, founded Heartland Express, a transportation-logistics company. Mr. Gerdin died in 2011.

Southern Poverty Law Center

The actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal, the Lebanese-British lawyer specializing in international law and human rights, gave $1 million through their Clooney Foundation for Justice. The couple said in a written statement that they made the gift to help the organization counter violent extremism in the United States and in response to the outbreak of violence at a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on August 12.White supremacists at that rally clashed with counterprotesters, and a car attack left one woman dead and many others injured.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.