Medical College of Wisconsin Receives $50 Million to Reshape Medical Profession
By M.J. Prest
Senior Editor, Solutions
June 27, 2022 | Read Time: 4 minutes
A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Medical College of Wisconsin
Robert and Patricia Kern committed $50 million through their Kern Family Foundation to continue programs that transform medical education for faculty and students within the Kern National Network for Caring and Character in Medicine and the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education.
The couple created the institute with a 2017 gift of $37.9 million. Of the new gift, $10 million will match donations from other philanthropists and foundations.
Robert Kern is the founder and retired chairman of Generac Power Systems, a generator-manufacturing company in Waukesha, Wis. The couple appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2013 for a $67.3 million gift to the Mayo Clinic.
University of Virginia
John Nau awarded the university $17.6 million through his John L. Nau III Foundation to establish a $15 million endowment that will back the Karsh Institute of Democracy and a $2.6 million fund to provide additional support for the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History. The gift will also pay for three graduate fellowships, three additional undergraduate internships, housing stipends for interns, a postdoctoral fellowship, an administrator for the expanded programs, and an annual teachers’ seminar that will be held each summer.
Nau is chairman and CEO of Silver Eagle Distributors, a beverage wholesaler in Houston. He graduated from the university in 1968 with a degree in history. Nau previously gave his alma mater $27.5 million in 2020 for the Democracy Initiative, which included support for the College’s Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy.
Florida State University
Charles Rockwood donated $10 million to establish the Dr. Persis E. Rockwood School of Marketing within the College of Business. The gift includes two endowments for faculty support and scholarships for graduate and undergraduate students; a fund for student professional development; a discretionary fund for the Rockwood School’s future needs; and $1 million to build the Dr. Persis Rockwood Academic Programs Suite and the Dr. Persis Rockwood Academic and Behavioral Research Lab within the business school’s future facility.
Charles Rockwood made the gift in honor of his late wife, Persis Rockwood, who taught marketing and management at the university until her 1989 retirement; she died in May 2021 at age 97. Charles Rockwood taught economics there until he retired in 1991.
Cleveland Clinic Florida
Steven Jay Shulman and Ellen Leifer Shulman donated $5 million to enhance research and education in the Digestive Disease Center at the organization’s Weston Hospital. Ellen Shulman said in a statement that she has been under treatment for decades for Crohn’s disease; the couple’s gift will enhance care for other patients with the inflammatory bowel disease.
Steven Shulman is chairman of Magellan Health and managing partner at Shulman Family Ventures, a private-equity firm that specializes in health care.
Brandeis University
Marta Kauffman pledged $4 million to endow a professorship in African and African American studies. The gift will support a scholar with a concentration in the study of the peoples and cultures of Africa and the African diaspora. It will also back programs within the department to recruit more experts and teachers, plan for long-term academic and research priorities, and offer new interdisciplinary opportunities for students.
Kauffman, who graduated from the university in 1978, is a television producer who co-created the hit sitcom Friends.
Spirit of America
The billionaire heir Howard Buffett gave the humanitarian group $2.7 million through his Howard G. Buffett Foundation for its response to the war in Ukraine. The charity will deliver nine 50-passenger buses to the Ukrainian Territory Defense Forces to evacuate refugees and provide 375 advanced trauma kits for Ukrainians on the front lines.
Buffett is a director at Berkshire Hathaway and owns farms in Illinois and Nebraska. The elder son of the billionaire financier Warren Buffett, Howard Buffett met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine shortly before announcing his gift.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Donna Lee Gutterman pledged $1 million to augment the Carolina Volleyball Operating Endowment Fund. She dedicated her gift to Beth Miller, who retired in 2015 as senior associate athletics director and senior woman administrator; Joe Sagula, the longtime volleyball head coach; and her former teammates.
Gutterman was the first scholarship volleyball player as an undergraduate at the university. She earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy there in 1979 and an M.B.A. in 1998. She went on to work in marketing at GlaxoSmithKline for 23 years and is now president of Onesta, a marketing consulting firm for the pharmaceutical and medical industry.
Virginia Commonwealth University
James McConnell Jr. gave $5 million to endow three funds that will promote social justice through its theater department. Of the total, $1.5 million will establish the James H.T. McConnell Jr. Theatre Fellowship in Social Justice, which will support graduate students who advance social justice through theater. The balance will establish the James H.T. McConnell Jr. Theatre Chair in Social Justice and the James H.T. McConnell Jr. Theatre Faculty Fund in Social Justice.
McConnell is an heir to the du Pont family fortune. He lives in Charlottesville, Va.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
