U. of Va. Gets Pledge of $20-Million to Help Build Basketball Arena; Other Gifts

An anonymous donor has pledged $20-million to the athletics department at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, to help design and construct a basketball arena. The arena, which will also be used for concerts and other special events, is expected to cost $125-million.

Other nonprofit groups that received big gifts:

Appalachian State U. (Boone, N.C.): $10-million from Mariam Cannon Hayes, of Concord, N.C., whose family owned Cannon Mills, a textile company in Kannapolis, N.C., to endow the music school, which will be named for Mrs. Hayes.

Averett College (Danville, Va.): $1.5-million from a trust established by Elizabeth Stuart James Grant, who owned the Danville Register and the Danville Bee, now the Danville Register & Bee, and who died in 1990, for technological improvements, to train faculty members to use technology, and to create the Institute for Learning and Research.

Azusa Pacific U. (Calif.): $3-million gift from an anonymous donor to help renovate a campus building that will contain a theology library, classrooms, and faculty offices.

California Polytechnic State U. (San Luis Obispo): $6-million from Paul R. Bonderson Jr., co-founder of Brocade Communications Systems, to help build an engineering building and a software-design studio.

Central Florida Community College (Ocala): $2-million from Ron and Phyllis Ewers, founders of Class 1, a manufacturing company in Ocala, Fla., to help build a conference facility.

Colonial Williamsburg (Va.): a collection of English pottery valued at more than $5-million from Henry H. Weldon, of New York and Amagansett, N.Y., the former owner of Alba, a company that produced powdered milk, and his wife, June (Jimmy) Weldon. The collection will be displayed at Colonial Williamsburg’s DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.

Columbia U. (New York): $1.5-million from Michael A. Wiener, founder of Infinity Broadcasting, a radio broadcasting company, and his wife, Zena, for the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.): $7.5-million unrestricted bequest from Hilda Hardy, whose husband, Robert C. Hardy, graduated from the college in 1925; $1.3-million unrestricted bequest from Sydney Bowers, who graduated in 1944; $1.3-million bequest from Francis Murphy Jr., who graduated in 1944, for scholarships; and a $1.2-million bequest from Basil O’Connor, a 1912 graduate, for scholarships.

DePaul U. (Chicago): $1-million pledge from William Hay, of Chicago, a management consultant, and his wife, Mary Pat Gannon Hay, who works in media relations, to support the Vincent de Paul Leadership Project.

Duke U. (Durham, N.C.): $4.5-million bequest from William Hane Wannamaker Jr., of Wyndmoor, Pa., a retired engineer for the Brown Instrument division of Honeywell, in Philadelphia, to establish an endowment that will support the electrical-engineering department.

Friends of the Hamilton Schools Foundation (Mont.): $1.2-million bequest from Iva M. Hargett, of Hamilton, Mont., to establish a fund to provide college scholarships to students who attended Hamilton High School.

Greensboro College (N.C.): $2-million from Royce Reynolds, of Greensboro, N.C., chairman of Crown Automotive Management, which is headquartered in Greensboro, and his wife, Jane, to turn a campus building into a student center.

Guilford College (Greensboro, N.C.): bequest of more than $1-million from William L. Yates, of Lexington, S.C., a retired president of the South Carolina Hospital Association who died in 1999, to endow a scholarship fund.

Harvard U. (Cambridge, Mass.): $1-million challenge gift from Albert Merck, of Boston, a former board member of Merck & Company, and his wife, Katharine, for WideWorld, an online teacher-development program at the graduate school of education. The couple will match donations raised for the program from other sources, up to that amount.

High Point U. (N.C.): $1-million pledge from John C. (Jack) Slane, former owner of the Slane Hosiery Mills, in High Point, N.C., and his wife, Marsha B. Slane, to establish a program in early-childhood education.

Indiana U.Purdue U. at Indianapolis: $1.3-million from Dolores Hoyt, associate dean of the university’s library, her husband, Giles, associate dean of international affairs, Ruth Reichmann, director of the German American center, and her husband, Eberhard, editor of that center’s publications, to establish a professorship in German American studies and to purchase library books and materials for the program.

Johns Hopkins U. (Baltimore): $1.5-million from C. Michael Armstrong, chief executive officer of AT&T, to establish a professorship for stem-cell research at the university’s medical school.

Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio): $10-million from an alumnus who wishes to remain anonymous, to support the college’s natural-science program and capital projects.

League for People with Disabilities (Baltimore): $3.3-million unrestricted bequest from Sarah H. Sayler, of Baltimore, in memory of her late husband, Monroe H. Schoss.

Liberty U. (Lynchburg, Va.): $4.5-million from Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind book series, and his wife, Beverly, a university trustee, to help build a student center. An anonymous donor will match the LaHayes’ gift with an additional $4.5-million for the center.

Monmouth College (Ill.): $2-million unrestricted pledge from David Bowers, of Mauldin, S.C., vice chairman of CompX International, in Dallas; $1.5-million unrestricted pledge from Fred Wackerle, retired founder of an executive-search company in Chicago; $1-million unrestricted pledge from Peter Bunce, of St. Louis, Mo., retired chief executive officer of the Bunce Corporation, and his wife, Gail; $1-million unrestricted gift from Ann Mack Collier, of Mukilteo, Wash., a retired math teacher and professor, and her husband, John, a retired associate dean for the Foreign Service Institute, at the State Department; and a $1-million unrestricted gift from Roger Rasmusen, of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., retired chief financial officer of Baxter International, in Deerfield, Ill.

Neurosciences Institute (San Diego): $10-million challenge gift — to be paid over five years if the institute can raise $3-million in cash from other sources each year — from Lewis B. Cullman, of New York, who recently sold the At-A-Glance calendar company, and his wife, Dorothy, for capital projects; and $1-million from William D. Walsh, of Menlo Park, Calif., chairman of the institute and a founding partner of Sequoia Associates, an investment company in Menlo Park, for capital projects.

Ohio State U. (Columbus): $10-million from Elizabeth M. (Libby) Ross, a 1940 graduate of the university, for a new heart hospital in honor of her late husband, Richard M. Ross, an alumnus and former president of Ross Laboratories, in Columbus, now a division of Abbott Laboratories.

Paul Smith’s College (Paul Smiths, N.Y.): $1-million challenge gift from an anonymous donor to help build a new library, expected to open in January.

Pennsylvania State U. (University Park): $2.7-million from Paul Berg, of Stanford, Calif., professor emeritus at Stanford University, whose work developing a method to map DNA won a Nobel Prize, and his wife, Mildred, to help build a new life-sciences building and to support undergraduate student research in the life sciences; $1.1-million from Richard Zimmerman, of Hershey, Pa., retired chairman of Hershey Foods, and his wife, Nancy, to expand an endowment the couple created to support the business school; $1-million from George Middlemas, of Chicago, managing general partner of Apex Investment Partners, a venture-capital company, to create an endowment at the library for earth and mineral sciences, and to support the university libraries; and $1-million from J. David Rogers, managing director of equities trading at Goldman Sachs & Company in New York, to help build a mock stock-trading room.

Philadelphia Zoo: $5-million from an anonymous donor for an avian exhibit.

Phillips Theological Seminary (Tulsa, Okla.): $1-million from an anonymous donor to help build a chapel.

Resources for the Future (Washington): $2-million unrestricted gift from Thomas J. Klutznick, president of a real-estate company in Chicago, to endow a fellowship.

Roger Williams U. (Bristol, R.I.): $7-million pledge from Ralph R. Papitto, chairman of the board of trustees of the university, former chairman of AFC Cable Systems, and the founder of Nortek Inc., in Providence, R.I., for the university’s endowment.

Rotary Foundation (Evanston, Ill.): $7-million bequest from Paul Elder, former president of the Turtle Creek Savings and Loan Association in Turtle Creek, Pa., and his wife, Jean. Of the total, $3-million is to endow a scholarship fund, $2-million will support two Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships per year, $1-million will support one or more Rotary World Peace Scholarships, $500,000 is for a program that works to eradicate polio, and $500,000 is unrestricted.

Russell Sage College (Troy, N.Y.): $1-million from Lorraine Walker Bardsley, of Doylestown, Pa., a psychotherapist and a retired physical-education teacher and student guidance counselor, for renovations to two campus buildings.

Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, Ind.): $1-million pledge from Judd Leighton, of South Bend, Ind., a former chairman of the First Interstate Bank of Northern Indiana, and his late wife, Mary Lou Leighton, who died in March, to endow a music professorship.

Saint Mary’s School (Raleigh, N.C.): $3-million from Julian H. Robertson Jr., who founded Tiger Management, an investment company in New York, and his wife, Josie, to create a scholarship program in honor of Mr. Robertson’s sister, Blanche Robertson Bacon, who attended Saint Mary’s.

Saranac Community Schools (Mich.): $1-million in a charitable remainder trust from Maxine Compagner, of Saranac, who died in 1997, and her husband, Ed, a home builder who died last year, to support educational and faculty-training programs, and to provide scholarships for students to go on to a college or university.

Southern Methodist U. (Dallas): $2-million from Helmut Sohmen, of Hong Kong, chairman of the World-Wide Shipping Group, to endow a fund that will provide scholarships for Chinese lawyers to complete a master’s degree in comparative and international law.

St. John’s U. (Jamaica, N.Y.): four unrestricted gifts from anonymous donors: $2.5-million, $1.1-million, and two gifts of $1-million each.

St. Olaf College (Northfield, Minn.): $12-million from Jerrol (Jerry) Tostrud, a retired executive vice president at West Publishing Company, in Eagan, Minn., now part of West Information Publishing Group, and his wife, Alleen, to help build a recreation center that is expected to be completed in September 2002.

State U. of New York at Purchase: $5-million challenge gift from Roy R. Neuberger, founder of Neuberger Berman, an investment company in Boston, toward the institution’s capital campaign. He has pledged to match dollar-for-dollar up to that amount raised from other sources for the campaign.

U. of Alabama at Birmingham: $1-million bequest from Gwen McWhorter, an investor and former public-health worker in Birmingham, Ala., who died in March, to create a professorship in geriatric medicine.

U. of Arizona (Tucson): $1-million bequest from Mildred Dodge Jeremy Ingalls, of Tucson, a poet and literary scholar, and Mary Dearing Lewis, an English professor, to help build a new poetry center and republish some poems written by Ms. Ingalls.

U. of Illinois Foundation (Urbana): $3.9-million bequest from Marion H. Schenk, a Chicago lawyer who died in 1999, to establish or help endow five professorships in general surgery and ophthalmology; $1.5-million gift from Nancy Tarika, of Naples, Fla., to create a professorship in chemical engineering in honor of her husband, Elio Eliakim Tarika, a former executive at Union Carbide; and $1-million pledge from Jerry Nerad, of Hinsdale, Ill., president of TimeMed Labeling Systems, in Burr Ridge, Ill., and his wife, Ann, to endow the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics.

U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: $2-million from Frank Borden Hanes Sr., of Winston-Salem, N.C., a businessman and author, for scholarships at the college of arts and sciences; $1.5-million from an anonymous donor to create a professorship in childhood cancer in honor of G. Denman Hammond, founding president of the National Childhood Cancer Foundation and chairman of the Children’s Cancer Group.

U. of Richmond (Va.): $7-million from Marcus and Carole Weinstein, of Richmond, their daughter, Allison Weinstein, president of Weinstein Management Company, and her husband, Ivan Jecklin, to help build a social-science center, to be named Weinstein Hall.

U. of Southern California (Los Angeles): $5-million from Joseph Aresty, founder of Alfred Dunner, a clothing manufacturer in New York, and his wife, Catherine, to build a urological-cancer research facility at the medical school.

U. of Washington at Tacoma: $1-million pledge from an anonymous donor to support the university’s technology institute.

U. of Wisconsin at Stevens Point Foundation: $1-million pledge from John and Patty Noel, of Stevens Point, co-founders of the Noel Group, a travel-insurance company, to help build an addition to the fine-arts center.

U. of Wyoming (Laramie): $1.5-million from Curt Rochelle, of Cheyenne, Wyo., founder of Rochelle Livestock Company, in Rawlins, Wyo., and his wife, Marian, to create an endowment to finance construction, renovation, and upkeep of campus facilities.

Utah National Parks Council, Boy Scouts of America (Provo): $1.2-million challenge gift from a couple who wish to remain anonymous until the challenge is met, to help construct a new Boy Scout center. The couple will match, up to that amount, donations raised from other sources for the center.

West Virginia U. Foundation (Morgantown): $2-million from Lyell B. Clay, of Charleston, W.Va., former chairman of Clay Communications and retired publisher of the Charleston Daily Mail, to help renovate a concert hall; $1-million from Michele Vigneault McNeill, of Green Village, N.J., founder of Kern McNeill International, a pharmaceutical research company in Chatham, N.J., now part of United Health Group, for a professorship in clinical pharmacy in honor of Arthur I. Jacknowitz, a professor at the university; and $1-million pledge from Stuart Robbins, retired managing director of global equities for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, and his wife, Joyce, to establish a professorship and a fellowship program in the history department, and to help the library purchase history materials.

Westminster College (New Wilmington, Pa.): $3-million from Andrew McKelvey, founder of TMP Worldwide, to help build a student center.