Rensselaer Institute Sets Record With $360-Million Pledge; Other Gifts

Several organizations have received large gifts:

• An anonymous donor has pledged $230-million to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, adding to a commitment of $130-million the donor made three months ago. Taken together, the $360-million gift is the largest sum an individual has ever contributed to a single higher-education institution, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

  In announcing the new $230-million commitment, the Troy, N.Y., institution said the donor had made some changes to the agreement over how the first $130-million should be used. The donor initially earmarked the $130-million for construction of a biotechnology research center and a facility for electronic media and performing arts.

  The donor now has said that the entire gift comes with no restrictions.

  Shirley Ann Jackson, the institute’s president, said the funds would be used for programs to help increase the number of faculty members, increase the amount of research conducted on campus, and improve students’ academic and social experience.

  Ms. Jackson also said that instead of using the donor’s money for the new research and arts centers, the institute would borrow money to finance the buildings. One reason: Colleges can’t easily borrow money to expand faculty and student programs, but they usually have little trouble obtaining financing for construction projects.

• Eight Chicago charities will benefit from a charitable remainder trust worth nearly $24.9-million set up by Florence Davis Sewell, of Chicago. Mrs. Sewell, who died in 2000 at age 95, was married to Ike Sewell, who founded the Pizzeria Uno, Pizzeria Due, and Su Casa restaurant chains.

  The Northwestern Memorial Hospital Foundation will receive $6.15-million to endow the Florence and Ike Sewell Museum, in the hospital’s main building. Other Chicago groups that will receive a portion of Mrs. Sewell’s bequest are the Fourth Presbyterian Church, $4.92-million; the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, $3.96-million; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, $2.46-million; the Chicago Historical Society, $2.46-million; the Art Institute of Chicago, $1.23-million; the Lincoln Park Zoo, $1.23-million; and the Illinois Masonic Medical Center Foundation, $1.23-million.

  The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, in New York, will receive $1.23-million.

Other big gifts:

Catholic Diocese of Memphis: $1.2-million from William Joseph Kleiser, a priest who died last June at age 74, to help renovate the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and remodel Idlewild Terrace, an apartment building owned by the diocese.

Columbia U. (New York): $10-million pledge from Alberto W. Vilar, founder of Amerindo Investment Advisors, in New York, to establish a professorship in neurological surgery and endow a research fund at the university’s medical school.

Cornell College (Mount Vernon, Iowa): $12-million over 15 years in a charitable lead trust from Norma Small, of Tulsa, Okla., and her husband, Richard, founder of the Cheker Oil Company, which he sold to the Marathon Oil Company, in Houston, and current vice-chairman of Tri-Star Aerospace Incorporated, a distributor of aircraft hardware and components, in Deerfield Beach, Fla., for endowment, the annual fund, and capital projects.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (Washington): $1-million from Pamela Samuelson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s law school, and her husband, Robert Glushko, an engineering fellow at Commerce One, a software provider in Pleasanton, Calif., to establish a paid summer internship program for law students interested in public-interest law and the Internet.

Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington): $10-million from Nan Tucker McEvoy, of San Francisco, former chairman of the San Francisco Chronicle, to help renovate the Old Patent Office Building, which houses the museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

St. Boniface Church (San Francisco): $1-million from an anonymous donor, who attended St. Boniface elementary school, to help restore the church building, an adjacent friary, and a neighborhood center.

Stanford U. (California): $15-million pledge from Pehong Chen, founder of BroadVision, a software company in Redwood City, Calif., and his wife, Adele, to help construct a building for the Pehong and Adele Chen Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology Institute, and to endow a professorship for the institute’s director.

Steward School (Richmond, Va.): $2-million from an anonymous donor, to help build a library and administration building and an art center.

Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (Shrewsbury, N.J.): $5-million for endowment from the estate of Paul Mellon, who died in 1999 at age 91.

Toledo Symphony (Ohio): $2.2-million from Edward H. Schmidt, who owns auto dealerships in Maumee and Perrysburg, Ohio, to endow the Edward H. Schmidt Musical Arts Fund, which will help finance new compositions, maintain the symphony’s archives, and record performances.

Tulane U. (New Orleans): $4.4-million bequest from Catherine G. Spaar, of San Antonio, who died last November and whose late husband, William H. Spaar, worked as an engineer in the U.S. Army, for scholarships in engineering and to renovate the engineering facilities.

U. of Arkansas (Fayetteville): $1-million pledge from Sylvia Boyer, of Amarillo, Tex., and Fayetteville, Ark., and her husband, Tommy, a retired Kodak salesman and current owner of Micro Images, in Lubbock, Tex., which resells Kodak hardware and software, to expand several scholarship funds previously established by the Boyers.

U. of Hartford (Conn.): $1-million pledge from Arnold C. Greenberg, former chairman of Coleco Industries, Inc., in Pawtucket, R.I., and his wife, Beverly P. Greenberg, a member of the Connecticut state board of education, to support research grants for junior faculty members.