Gifts Roundup: UVA Gets $25 Million, USC and Maryland Get $20 Million Each

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute

Ronald and Terri Weinberg pledged $30 million to support a variety of research programs.

Ronald Weinberg is a director of Weinberg Capital Group, which manages investments and operates private companies. Previously he co-founded Hawk Corporation, a manufacturer, and sold it in 2010 to Carlisle Companies for roughly $413 million.

He is a member of the Cleveland Clinic Board of Directors and chair of the Research and Education Committee.

University of Virginia School of Law

Bruce and Martha Karsh pledged $25 million for scholarships, to create the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy, and to endow a professorship to lead the new center. The university’s Board of Visitors is giving an additional $18.9 million in the Karshes’ name for those three efforts.

The Karshes both graduated from the law school, he in 1980 and she in 1981. Bruch Karsh worked as a lawyer before going on to start the investment-management company Oaktree Capital Management. Martha Karsh worked as a business litigator and later co-founded Clark & Karsh, a design firm.

The portion of their gift backing scholarships will pay full tuition and fees for all three years of the legal studies for those who qualify. The new center will house programs and symposia focused on respect for the rule of law; civic engagement and discourse; the ideals of a plural society; and the values of truth, integrity, and ethics.

University of Maryland School of Medicine

Robert and Susan Fischell gave $20 million to launch the National Center for Bioengineering Innovation and to back research and professorships.

Robert Fischell is a physicist and an inventor. He holds more than 200 patents, including nearly 30 on orbiting spacecraft, and is credited with pioneering the modern era of space satellites. He earned an M.S. in physics from the university in 1953.

University of Southern California

Financier Mei-Lee Ney donated $20 million to create a research center on longevity and healthy aging at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Ney is president of Richard Ney & Associates Asset Management, an investment advisory firm she has lead with her late business partner and husband, Richard, since 1973.

The university also received $10 million from Allen Ginsburg, and his wife, Charlotte, to establish a research fund at the USC Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics. Allen Ginsburg is a retired ophthalmologist.

Southwestern University

Jack Garey gave $15 million to establish the Jack and Camille Garey School of Natural Sciences and to support faculty development, academic programming, need-based scholarships, and other programs.

Jack Garey was president of Garey Construction Company and served on Southwestern’s Board of Trustees for 12 years. Camille Garey died in 2012.

University of Southern Indiana

William and Mary Stone donated $15 million to the Health Sciences Center in downtown Evansville, a partnership among the University of Evansville, the University of Southern Indiana, and Indiana University. The center will be named for the Stones.

William Stone founded SS&C Technologies in 1986 and currently serves as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Yale University

Leonard and Emily Blavatnik gave $15 million through their family foundation to expand the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation.

The Blavatnik Fund backs entrepreneurship programs in the life sciences at Yale and carries out the development, application, and commercialization of new research. The couple first established the fund in 2016 with a grant of $10 million.

Leonard Blavatnik is a British-American businessman who was born in Russia. He runs Access Industries, a holding company.

Henry Street Settlement

Sylvia Bloom-Margolies left more than $6.2 million to create the Bloom-Margolies Scholarship Fund, which will support the human-service group’s Expanded Horizons College Success Program.

Margolies worked as a secretary for the New York law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton for 67 years. Her wealth was the result of a lifetime of quietly and shrewdly investing on the side. She died in 2016 having amassed a fortune of about $9 million, according the news reports.

The Expanded Horizons program serves students from ninth grade through college and provides them with free college counseling, SAT preparation, tutoring, visits to college campuses, and continuous support until they complete their degree.

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