Gifts Roundup: Philip Anschutz Gives U. of Colorado $120 Million for Health Sciences

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

University of Colorado

Billionaire Philip Anschutz gave $120 million through his Anschutz Foundation for a new health-sciences building and to back research and other programs at the Anschutz Medical Campus.

He owns holdings in entertainment, oil, railroads, real estate, and telecommunications. He is credited as one of the founders of Major League Soccer and owns the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and one-third of the L.A. Lakers basketball team.

Including this donation, Anschutz has given the medical campus a total of nearly $300 million since 2000.

University of California at San Diego

Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi donated $50 million to support the newly named Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology and the Viterbi Family Vision Research Center. The gift will also endow six new professorships.

Viterbi is famous in the wireless-communications industry for the “Viterbi Algorithm,” which changed the way people connect and communicate. He served as an engineering professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and later at U.C. San Diego, where he is now professor emeritus. Viterbi has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors twice.

He said in a news release he donated the money to honor his ophthalmologist father, Achille Viterbi, who moved the family to the United States after fleeing Fascist Italy in 1939.

“His hospital was the regional hospital in Bergamo, and he was one of the leading citizens,” said Viterbi. “He struggled to make a home for us in a new world, and now I am in the position to honor his name.”

Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis

James and Elizabeth McDonnell pledged $20 million through their JSM Charitable Trust to rebuild the theater’s stage, support the maintenance and upkeep of the organization’s 11.5-acre campus, and endow education and outreach programs.

James McDonnell III’s family founded McDonnell Aircraft, which later became McDonnell Douglas and merged with Boeing in 1997.

Indiana University Health System

Shelly Schwarz committed $10 million to establish the Joe and Shelly Schwarz Cancer Center at the university’s Health North Hospital.

Her late husband, Joe Schwarz, was an entrepreneur who died in March after battling cancer. Shelly Schwarz said in a news release that she is giving the money in recognition of the care her husband received at the university’s health system.

Bryn Mawr College

Emily Rauh Pulitzer pledged $5 million to endow a professorship and to support students in the History of Art Department.

Ms. Pulitzer is the widow of Joseph Pulitzer III, the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1955 with a degree in art history and served as an assistant curator of drawings at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum. She also worked as curator of the Saint Louis Art Museum.

She is a longtime donor to art institutions and journalism programs. In 2016, she gave $12 million to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, where she is president of the Board of Directors.

Lewis University

Russ and Dawn Smyth committed more than $5 million for the new College of Aviation, Science and Technology, which will be named for the couple and will open in 2019.

Russ Smyth is chief executive of HAVI, a marketing logistics and analytics business, and a former president and chief executive of the tax services company H&R Block. He formerly served as chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees.

Detroit RiverFront Conservancy

Matthew and Karen Cullen gave $4 million to build three plazas in the park and redevelop Detroit’s riverfront.

Matthew Cullen is chief executive of Jack Entertainment and a principal of Rock Ventures, which operate casinos and hotels in Michigan and Ohio. He is the conservancy’s founding chairman.

Fisk University

Dallas businessman Roland Parrish donated $3 million to build the new Roland G. Parrish Center for Career Planning and Development, which will house classrooms, conference rooms, and other spaces.

Parrish leads Parrish Restaurants, a company that operates 25 eateries in Dallas and the surrounding areas.

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