Philanthropist Urges Colleges to Promote Giving

Sheila C. Johnson, a co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and president of the Washington Mystics basketball team, encouraged colleges to instill the value of philanthropy in students, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ms. Johnson said, “Graduates — if they have been trained and challenged properly, will ultimately support the institutions that many years ago adopted them.”

At the Chronicle’s Presidents Forum, Ms. Johnson pushed for strong support of arts education, stating, “On college campuses across the country, more than any time in our history, the arts have taken a back seat to engineering, to mathematics, and to science. It’s gotten so the concept of ‘liberal arts’ has become as quaint on some campuses as raccoon-skin coats and swallowing goldfish.”

The Presidents Forum is devoted to discussion of how college executives can improve the management of their institutions in the areas of employee recruitment, finances, and fund raising.

Ms. Johnson recently gave $5-million to the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

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