Three Gifts of $100-Million or More Go to Medical and Business Schools
By Maria Di Mento and LAWRENCE BIEMILLER
November 27, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Two universities have received three gifts of $100-million or more:
- New York University Langone Medical Center has received two pledges totaling $260-million, from Helen L. Kimmel, a member of the center’s Board of Trustees, and from a family that wished to remain anonymous.
- The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business has received $300-million from David G. Booth, a financier who graduated from the school in 1971 and who serves as a trustee of the institution.
The gift to the University of Chicago is the largest ever to a business school, the university said. It came with no restrictions and was made by Mr. Booth, his wife, Suzanne, and their family. In honor of the gift, the school will get a new name — the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
The no-strings nature of the gift offers an interesting contrast to the controversy over the university’s plan to create a $200-million Milton Friedman Institute of Economics.
Backers of the idea say that a well-heeled institute is essential if the university hopes to retain its pre-eminence in economics, but critics fret that it could become a haven for right-wing, free-market thinkers, and that the university’s plan to offer life memberships to million-dollar donors to the institute “invites cronyism, corruption, and creeping corporate takeover.”
The gifts to New York University did come with conditions: Donors want the money to pay for renovations and new facilities.
Ms. Kimmel pledged $150-million to the medical center to pay for a new patient facility. The unnamed family has pledged $110-million to redesign Tisch Hospital, the university’s main medical facility, which was built in 1963.
A board member since 1984, Ms. Kimmel is the widow of Martin S. Kimmel. Mr. Kimmel was a co-founder of Kimco Realty Corporation, a real-estate development company in New Hyde Park, N.Y., that is one of the country’s largest builders of strip malls. Mr. Kimmel died in April at age 92.
Over the years, Ms. Kimmel and her late husband have given more than $190-million to the medical center.
The gifts announced this month are the second and third gifts of $100-million or more that the medical center has received since April, when Kenneth G. and Elaine A. Langone pledged $100-million. Mr. Langone is chairman of the center’s Board of Trustees.
Lawrence Biemiller is a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
