UCLA Medical School Receives $200-Million; Other Large Donations

David Geffen, the Hollywood entertainment mogul, has made a $200-million donation to the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine.

The donation is the 11th-largest contribution from a private source to a higher-education institution, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mr. Geffen put no restrictions on how the money will be used. University officials said they plan to put the money into the medical school’s endowment. The funds drawn annually from the donation will go to enhance the school’s research and teaching activities, including support for new programs and efforts to recruit and retain outstanding physicians, scientists, and graduate students in medicine and science. The medical school, which recently marked its 50th anniversary, will be renamed the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Mr. Geffen, who is estimated to be worth $3.9-billion according to Forbes magazine, made his gift through the David Geffen Foundation, in Universal City, Calif. Established in 1986, the foundation supports groups that focus on the arts, gay and lesbian causes, HIV/AIDS, and Jewish issues, in addition to medicine.

Mr. Geffen, 59, is a principal partner in the DreamWorks SKG, the multifaceted entertainment corporation he formed in 1994 with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and served on the university’s Board of Regents from 1980-87. His other business ventures have included Geffen Pictures and Geffen Records.

The following nonprofit organizations also recently received large gifts:

Bennington College (Vt.): $5-million from Katharine Merck, who graduated from the college in 1946, and her husband, Albert, for unrestricted use.

Brown U. (Providence, R.I.): $1-million from Lawton Wehle Fitt, an alumna who lives in London, to endow an artists-in-residence program.

Colonial Williamsburg (Va.): $1.5-million pledge from David Rockefeller, of New York, the retired chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, to support the Presidential Discretionary Endowment Fund.

Duke U. (Durham, N.C.): $1-million from A. Morris Williams, of Gladwyne, Pa., an emeritus member of the university’s Board of Trustees, and his wife, Ruth, for a scholarship-endowment fund and to support the parish-ministry program in the Divinity School.

D’Youville College (Buffalo, N.Y.): $1.5-million bequest from Pauline M. Alt, an alumna who was a professor of education at Central Connecticut State U., in New Britain, for campus construction and renovation.

Johns Hopkins U. (Baltimore): $1.3-million from Wanda T. King to endow a fund for pediatric endocrinology at the Children’s Center, and $1-million from Arthur J. Samberg, chairman of Pequot Capital Management, in Westport, Conn., to support the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute.

Louisiana State U. (Baton Rouge): $7.5-million pledge from Gordon A. Cain, who founded several companies in Houston, and his wife, Mary, for science programs at the university and at schools in Louisiana.

Oakland U. (Rochester, Mich.): $1-million from Dennis Pawley, chief executive officer of Pawley Enterprises, in Farmington, Mich., and former executive vice president of manufacturing at the Chrysler Corporation, now DaimlerChrysler, to establish a manufacturing institute.

Rowan U. (Glassboro, N.J.): $1-million from Frederick (Ric) Edelman and his wife, Jean McMenamin Edelman, founders of Edelman Financial Services (Fairfax, Va.) and both alumni of the university, for the new planetarium.

U. of Missouri at Columbia: $10-million from Gordon Crosby Jr., of Fort Myers, Fla., an alumnus and a former chairman of the USLIFE Corporation, and his wife, Chessie, for the graduate business-administration program.

U. of Richmond (Va.): $5-million pledge from a university trustee who wishes to remain anonymous, and his wife, to endow faculty positions at the Robins School of Business and a scholarship for foreign students.

U. of South Carolina (Columbia): $1-million from Peter McCausland, president and chief executive officer of Airgas Inc., in Radnor, Pa., to recruit and retain faculty members at the College of Liberal Arts.