Two Universities Each Win $20-Million; Other Gifts

Two universities have received big gifts:

• Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Company, a real-estate investment firm in Newport Beach, Calif., has pledged $20-million to the University of California at Irvine to support its new law school. The money will help recruit and support a dean and 11 law professors, and endow a discretionary fund. With this donation, Mr. Bren has given a total of $70-million to the university, including 37 endowed professorships and support for the arts and sciences.
• The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, has received $20-million from Krishna Singh, founder and chief executive officer of Holtec International, a Marlton, N.J., company that makes storage equipment for nuclear waste from power plants. Mr. Singh, who taught engineering at the university before creating his company, has earmarked the gift to create a nanotechnology center for the university’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. He received his master’s degree in engineering mechanics there in 1969, and his doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1972.

Other recent gifts:

Auburn U. (Ala.): $5-million from Raymond Harbert, chairman of Harbert Management Corporation, an investment firm in Birmingham, Ala., and his wife, Kathryn, to help build an investment center and endow a professorship in the business program.

Baylor U. (Waco, Tex.): $4-million bequest from the estate of Allene Hubler, whose late husband, Raymond, was an electrical engineer, to endow a chair, a professorship, and scholarships in the university’s ministry-guidance program. Ms. Hubler died in May at the age of 98. Baylor also received a bequest of $1.2-million from the estate of John Reagan Harris, founder of a home-building center and lumberyard in Center, Tex., to endow scholarships and a fund at the Center for Christian Music Studies. Mr. Harris died in 1999 at the age of 69.

Berks County Community Foundation (Reading, Pa.): $1.4-million bequest from the estate of Irvin G. Shaffer, retired chief of anesthesiology at Community General Hospital, in Reading, and his wife, Beatrice, to endow a fund to support Jewish programs and needy people. Dr. Shaffer died in 2004 at the age of 89, and Ms. Shaffer died last year at age 88.

Canisius College (Buffalo, N.Y.): $1-million from Peter A. Vogt, former vice president of sales and marketing for the Greater Buffalo Press Corporation, in Buffalo, to endow merit-based scholarships.

Community School of Music and Arts at Finn Center (Mountain View, Calif.): $1-million pledge from Steve Finn, a former mayor of Los Altos Hills, Calif., and former chairman of Trust Company of America, an investment-services company in Centennial, Colo. Mr. Finn will match gifts from new and former donors to help build additional parking and a new program facility.

Concordia Seminary (St. Louis): $2.1-million from Werner R.H. Krause, retired personnel manager for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and his wife, Elizabeth, retired music librarian at Washington U., in St. Louis, to endow a professorship in Hispanic ministries.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical U. (Daytona Beach, Fla.): $2.5-million from James Hagedorn, chairman of Scotts Miracle-Gro, a lawn- and garden-products company in Marysville, Ohio, to help build a new aviation complex. The facility will include classrooms, offices, laboratories, two hangars, and flight-planning and dispatch areas. Mr. Hagedorn, who also has endowed three scholarship funds at the university, graduated in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical science.

Emory U. (Atlanta): $3-million bequest from the estate of J.B. Fuqua, founder and former chairman of Fuqua Industries, a business conglomerate in Atlanta, to support the Fuqua Center for Late-Life Depression. The money will help the center provide psychiatric care to older adults in rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia. Mr. Fuqua died last year at the age of 87.

Harrisburg Area Community College (Pa.): $1.5-million pledge from Alex Grass, retired chief executive officer of Rite Aid, a chain of pharmacy stores based in Camp Hill, Pa., to establish the School of Business Leadership, slated to open this month.

Hebrew SeniorLife (Boston): $5-million from Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson, to support a health-care center at one of the organization’s campuses, in honor of Mr. Adelson’s sister, Gloria Adelson Field, who died in January. The Adelsons’ gift adds to a previous donation of $15-million for the campus, which provides housing and care for elderly people and houses a school for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Sheldon Adelson is the developer of the Venetian, a hotel in Las Vegas, and chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, and Miriam Adelson is a physician who specializes in drug abuse and addiction.

Indianapolis Museum of Art: $2.2-million from Ruth Lilly, whose great-grandfather founded Eli Lilly and Company, a pharmaceutical corporation in Indianapolis, to endow the director of horticulture’s position. Including this gift, Ms. Lilly has given a total of $26.4-million to the museum.

Kenmore Mercy Hospital (Buffalo, N.Y.): $1-million unrestricted bequest from the estate of Thomas Hughes, who retired from his job at Union Carbide, a chemical and polymers company in Buffalo. The hospital will use his gift to endow a fund for future improvements to the facility. Mr. Hughes’s mother, Daisy, helped found the hospital; he died last year at the age of 85.

Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center (Calif.): $1.5-million from the Bankhead family, who own several ranches in Livermore, to help build the center’s new theater.

Loyola U. New Orleans: $1.3-million bequest from the estate of the Rev. Stephen J. Duffy, a religious-studies professor and priest, to endow a professorship in Roman Catholic systematic theology. Father Duffy, who wrote several books and articles on theology, died in March at the age of 76.

Lyric Opera of Chicago: $1-million from the Crown family to support radio broadcasts of the opera’s performances. Lester Crown is chairman of the board of the Material Service Corporation, a stone, sand, and gravel company in Chicago, and president of Henry Crown and Company, an investment firm also in Chicago.

MaineGeneral Medical Center (Augusta): $7-million from Harold Alfond, founder of the Dexter Shoe Company, in Maine, to help establish a cancer-care center.

Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary (Bethlehem, Pa.): $4.5-million unrestricted bequest from the estate of Charles D. Couch, who retired from the treasurer’s department of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, a chemicals manufacturer in Wilmington, Del.

Occidental College (Los Angeles): $1.3-million from Dave Berkus, founder and president of Berkus Technology Ventures, a venture-capital firm in Los Angeles, to endow a fund for building maintenance. Mr. Berkus, who is a member of Occidental’s Board of Trustees, graduated from the college in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

Ohio Wesleyan U. (Delaware, Ohio): $6-million bequest from the estate of Robert C. Manchester, a retired physician in Seattle who specialized in cardiology, to support the Ida Austin Manchester Scholarship Fund, which was endowed by Dr. Manchester and his sisters in 1986. Dr. Manchester, who graduated from the university in 1927 with a bachelor’s degree in premedicine, died in January at the age of 100.

San Diego State U.: $2-million pledge from Leonard H. Lavin, founder of the Alberto-Culver Company, a beauty- and household-products company in Melrose Park, Ill., to support programs at the university’s Entrepreneurial Management Center. The money will endow fellowships, a lecture series, internships, and student visits to companies.

Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington): $2-million from Robert Kogod, president of CESM Inc., a real-estate company in Arlington, Va., and his wife, Arlene, to support its capital campaign.

Southwest Washington Medical Center (Vancouver, Wash.): $3-million from Ray Hickey, former owner of Tidewater Barge Lines, a shipping company in Vancouver, and his family to provide palliative care to poor patients at the medical center’s Hospice House.

St. Bonaventure U. (N.Y.): $2-million pledge from Louis Magnano, founder and president of Park Centre Development, a real-estate development and rental company in Olean, N.Y., and his wife, Patricia. The gift will support building maintenance, scholarships, and the university’s capital campaign.

Tecumseh Education Foundation (New Carlisle, Ohio): $2.4-million from Garth Q. Briggs, former owner of Murray-Black Company, a manufacturing company in Springfield, Mo., to endow vocational and technical scholarships.

U. of Hawaii at Manoa: $1.1-million bequest from the estate of Gladys Kamakakuokalani Ainoa Brandt, a former high-school principal in Hawaii, to endow a professorship in comparative Polynesian studies. Ms. Brandt died in 2003.

U. of Kansas Hospital (Kansas City): $1-million from Annette Bloch to support patient care at the hospital’s new cancer center. Ms. Bloch’s late husband, Richard, co-founded H&R Block, a tax-preparation and financial-services firm in Kansas City, Mo.

U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor: $2.3-million from Elder Sang-Yong Nam, co-founder and president of Nam Building Management Company, in Ann Arbor, to support the Korean-studies program. He graduated in 1966 with a master’s degree in city planning.

U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: $2-million pledge from C. Felix Harvey III, chairman of Harvey Enterprises & Affiliates, an agricultural conglomerate that also deals in insurance, real estate, and transportation, and founder of the Little Bank, both in Kinston, N.C. Mr. Harvey’s gift will create the Award to Advance Institutional Priorities, which will support a variety of programs. He graduated from the university in 1943 with a bachelor’s degree in commerce.

U. of Wisconsin at Madison: a building valued at $3-million from G. Linn Roth, former owner of Locus, an electronics company in Fitchburg, Wis., and his wife, Jean Martinelli, a former high-school English teacher. The equity in the donated building will be used to endow scholarships for undergraduate students.

To submit announcements of donations from individuals of $1-million or more, please send an e-mail message to gifts@philanthropy.com.