Stanford U. Receives $43.5-Million to Build Graduate-Student Housing; Other Gifts

Two universities have received large gifts:

• Charles T. and Nancy B. Munger, of Los Angeles, have donated $43.5-million to Stanford University and its law school to construct housing for law, business, and other graduate students. Mr. Munger is vice chairman of the investment company Berkshire Hathaway, in Omaha. His wife is a graduate of the university, and several of their children and grandchildren also attended Stanford.
• Brown University, in Providence, R.I., has received gifts totaling $20-million from three alumni, all of whom are university trustees, to build a physical-fitness and wellness facility. Jonathan M. Nelson, founder and chief executive officer of Providence Equity Partners, in Providence, contributed $10-million, while Fredric B. Garonzik, a partner at Goldman Sachs, in New York, and a third trustee who asked to be anonymous donated the remainder.

Other recent gifts:

Augustana College (Sioux Falls, S.D.): $1.8-million bequest from Sally Fantle, whose family established Fantle’s department store, in Sioux Falls, for endowment and for the Center for Western Studies. Ms. Fantle died in 2002, at the age of 93.

Case Western Reserve U. (Cleveland): $1.5-million from Silvia Balslew Page to establish a professorship in ophthalmology, and $1.5-million from Philip F. and Elizabeth G. Searle to establish a professorship in the same department.

Chatham College (Pittsburgh): $1.5-million from Dorothy A. Pontious, of Pittsburgh, a 1935 graduate and a former employee of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, to endow a faculty chair.

College of Saint Benedict (St. Joseph, Minn.): $2.2-million from Benedict and Dorothy Gorecki, owners of Gorecki Manufacturing, in Milaca, Minn., to expand the college’s art center.

Florida Southern College (Lakeland): $1-million from an anonymous donor to endow the college’s chaplaincy.

Franklin & Marshall College (Lancaster, Pa.): $1-million from Dale Frey, of Weston, Conn., retired chairman and president of the General Electric Investment Corporation and a 1954 graduate of the college, to help construct a life-sciences building, and $1-million from Stanley Cheslock, of Greenwich, Conn., principal of Cheslock, Bakker and Associates, a merchant banking firm, and a 1967 graduate, also for the life-sciences building.

New England Village (Pembroke, Mass.): $1-million from Arnold and Siema Sollar, of New York, for a physical-fitness center at the residential community that serves adults with developmental disabilities.

Thomas Edison State College (Trenton, N.J.): $2-million from Gary and Diane Heavin, founders of the fitness-center chain Curves International, in Waco, Tex., for distance-education programs.

U. of Iowa (Iowa City): $5.5-million bequest from the estate of Robert A. Olson, of Kansas City, Mo., retired chairman of the Kansas City Power and Light Company, for the university’s libraries and other programs; $2.1-million bequest from the estate of Dorothy Marshall Frawley, of Wilmette, Ill., for scholarships and fellowships for organ students attending the school of music; and $1.25-million from Stanley and Gail Richards, of Des Moines, for the university’s Law, Health Policy, and Disability Center, which is part of the law school. Mr. Richards, the former president of General Growth Properties, in Chicago, serves on the Iowa Law School Foundation’s Board of Directors.

U. of North Texas (Denton): $2.25-million bequest from Sarah Law Kennerly, who served as a faculty member at the university’s School of Library and Information Sciences, to create up to six professorships for faculty members at the library school. Ms. Kennerly died in 2002.

U. of Texas at Austin: $2-million from Ernest and Sarah Butler, of Austin, to endow the opera-theater program at the School of Music. Dr. Butler, a retired physician, founded the Austin Ear, Nose, & Throat Clinic.

Washington U. in St. Louis: $2,325,000 from Robert and Julie Skandalaris, of Detroit, to endow a center for entrepreneurial studies and to support a research program in entrepreneurship. Mr. Skandalaris is chairman of Noble International and Quantity Value Partners, in Warren, Mich.