Retired NBA Star Charles Barkley Gives $1 Million to Tuskegee U.

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Cleveland Clinic

Nicholas and Lorie Howley gave $10 million through their Howley Foundation to expand the Aspire Nurse Scholars Program, which provides college scholarships to underrepresented Cleveland-area high-school students interested in pursuing registered nursing careers at the Breen School of Nursing and Health Professions at Ursuline College.

Through the program, students work as patient-care nursing assistants for Cleveland Clinic’s Stanley Shalom Zielony Institute for Nursing Excellence during the summer after high-school graduation and throughout their college career. They then have the opportunity to return to Cleveland Clinic to work as registered nurses for at least three years after they earn their nursing degree and license.

Nick Howley founded TransDigm Group, a Cleveland company that produces aerospace and other industrial components. Lori Howley is a horticulturist who worked in the education department of Longwood Gardens for 15 years. Longwood is a nonprofit botanical garden in Kennet Square, Pa.

University of Maine Foundation

Daniel and Betty Churchill pledged $6.5 million that will endow two professorships, a research fund, and fellowships and internships in the School of Policy and International Affairs and a professorship within the Climate Change Institute.

Daniel Churchill retired in 1998 as vice president of finance at Avis Europe PLC and previously worked in finance for a number of other corporations. Earlier in his career, he worked in U.S. intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Air Force. He earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the university in 1963.

Betty Richardson Churchill spent much of her career working for the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Air Force.

Furman University

Gordon and Sarah Herring committed $6.1 million to establish two funds within the Department of Music: the Herring Music Chair Endowment and the Herring Music Fellowship Fund.

Gordon Herring is a retired telecommunications executive who co-founded the Weather Channel in 1982. Sarah Herring is a retired telephone company executive. She graduated from Furman in 1966, and he graduated from the university in 1965. The Herrings were members of the Furman Singers when they were students.

Arkansas Tech University Foundation

James and Laurie Bibler pledged a $6 million planned gift that will be designated to two funds: the James and Laurie Bibler Scholarship fund and the University’s Greatest Need fund.

James Bibler is a retired lumber executive. He studied business administration at Arkansas Tech for two years before going to work for his family’s lumber company, Bibler Brothers, as a lumber stacker. He rose through the ranks to become president in 1967 and eventually sold 90 percent of the company to Freeman Brothers in 1998. West Fraser Company of Canada subsequently bought the business in 2014.

Laurie Bibler served as vice president, secretary, and chief financial officer of the company. She later enrolled in Arkansas Tech’s real-estate licensing program.

Barnard College

Francine LeFrak donated $5 million through her foundation to create the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being, which will provide students with access to comprehensive physical and mental health, holistic wellness, and financial-literacy support services.

LeFrak is a real-estate heiress and former theater and film producer who founded Same Sky, an effort to provide women in Rwanda and the United States with training and work opportunities. Her work with Same Sky began with survivors of the Rwandan genocide and continued in the United States with women who were recently released from prison.

Her mother, Ethel Stone LeFrak, graduated from Barnard in 1941 and served on the college’s Board of Trustees from 1981 to 1985.

Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

Jacqueline Reses and Matthew Apfel committed $5 million to back completion of a new academic building currently under construction and to create the Reses Apfel Men and Women of Pennsylvania Challenge Fund and support undergraduate scholarships.

Reses is executive chairman of Square Financial Services and the head of Square Capital, Square’s start-up small-business lending program. Earlier in her career she founded the U.S. media group at Apax Partners, a private-equity firm and was an executive at Yahoo! She earned a bachelors’s degree in economics from Wharton in 1992.

Apfel is a lawyer and the director of Virtual Reality Video at the Bay Area search giant Google. He earned a law degree at Penn in 1990.

Tuskegee University

Charles Barkley pledged $1 million as part of the famous athlete’s ongoing effort to support historically Black colleges and universities.

Earlier this year, he committed $1 million to Miles College, and in 2017 he pledged $1 million to Morehouse College in Atlanta. In 2016, he pledged $1 million to both Alabama A&M in Huntsville and Clark Atlanta University.

Barkley is a retired NBA basketball player and a television sports analyst and pundit. He played from 1984 to 2000 first for the Philadelphia 76ers, then the Phoenix Suns, and later for the Houston Rockets.

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