Netflix Co-Founder Reed Hastings Gives $1 Million to Improve Policing (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey gave $15 million to establish the Simpson Querrey Institute for Epigenetics and expand the medical school’s efforts to study the effects of environment on the regulation of gene expression.

Simpson is the chairman of the investment firm SQ Advisors and a former chief executive officer for capital operations at the auto-insurance company Geico. He graduated from Northwestern in 1958.

In 2019, the couple gave the medical school $10 million to create the Simpson Querrey Center for Neurogenetics, and $10 million in 2017 for related research. They appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2015.

Austin College

William Windsor Richardson left more than $12.8 million to create and endow four new professorships.

Richardson, who did in 2017, graduated from the college in 1964 and worked for there for the next 15 years starting out as a clerk in the campus store and eventually becoming assistant to the vice president for financial affairs. He later co-founded a business consultancy with Austin College’s former president John Moseley.

Richardson’s family were heavily involved with the college over many years. His grandfather, W.C. Windsor, and his mother, Gertrude Windsor Richardson, served on the Board of Trustees.

Michigan State University

Keelung Hong donated $6.1 million in honor of his late spouse, Stephen Murray, a sociologist, anthropologist, and independent scholar who was an MSU alumnus and died in 2019.

Of the total, $5 million will go toward renovating space in the university’s main library for its special collections, and $1 million will go to the university’s James Madison College to back the Stephen O. Murray Scholar in Residence program. An additional $100,000 will be used by MSU Libraries for travel fellowships.

Hong founded Taiwan Liposome Company in Taiwan and its U.S. subsidiary, TLC Biopharmaceuticals. He previously served as a research scientist at the University of Californian at San Francisco for two decades and worked as a consultant to several biotechnology companies before starting his own.

An immigrant from Taiwan, Hong co-authored with Murray two books on Taiwanese society and Taiwanese culture. Murray wrote and contributed to numerous books and published studies in sociolinguistics, the history of social sciences, and extensive historical and cross-cultural studies on homosexuality in multiple cultures.

Center for Policing Equity

Reed Hastings donated $1 million through his donor advised fund to support the nonprofit’s work to improve policing practices around the country. Hastings is a co-founder of Netflix. He started his donor-advised fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation with $100 million in 2016.

Spelman College

Frank and Laura Baker gave $1 million to launch a scholarship program that will pay for the existing spring tuition balances of nearly 50 members of Spelman’s 2020 graduating class and aid future graduating seniors.

Frank Baker founded Siris, a private-equity firm focused on technology and telecommunications companies. Laura Day Baker is an interior designer.

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