University of Tulsa Scores $38 Million for Athletics
A lifelong Golden Hurricane football fan left $8 million to update his alma mater’s athletic facilities, and anonymous alumni gave another $30 million for student-athlete scholarships.
By M.J. Prest
Senior Editor, Advice
July 15, 2024 | Read Time: 3 minutes
A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of Tulsa
Betty and Thomas Johnston left $8 million to enhance its athletic facilities. Tom Johnston graduated from the university with a degree in business in 1952. He ran the T.A. Johnston Company, in Tulsa, and invested in commercial real estate. He was locally famous throughout his life for his loyalty to his university’s football team. Until his death in 2017, he hadn’t missed a home game since his father first brought him to watch the Golden Hurricane play in 1937 when he was 9 years old.
In a separate gift for athletics, the university received an anonymous gift of $30 million to augment its Athletics Endowment Fund, which offers full tuition scholarships to student-athletes. The university said in a statement that the unnamed donors were athletes on its varsity sports teams during their time as students.
Peconic Bay Medical Center
Emilie and Michael Corey have donated $10 million to develop and name the Emilie Roy Corey Center for Women and Infants. When it opens in 2025 on the East End of Long Island, it will house additional private rooms and expand its specialized health services for women and children, including breast health, urogynecology, and teleneonatology.
Emilie Roy Corey is chairman of the Peconic Bay Medical Center Foundation’s Board of Directors. Michael Corey is a retired executive at J.P. Morgan Chase, the financial firm in New York.
National Public Radio
Eric and Wendy Schmidt have pledged $5.5 million over three years to bolster collaborative journalism efforts in public media across the United States. NPR and its affiliates will use the money to create a new newsroom in the Appalachian region; strengthen the Mountain West News Bureau, another of its public-media partnerships; and test a multistation visual-journalism program in New England.
The gift will also expand the reach of its California and Midwest newsrooms, which the billionaire couple helped establish with a 2020 gift of $4.7 million to increase local coverage in California, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.
Eric Schmidt is a former CEO of Google and was executive chairman of its parent company, Alphabet. Wendy Schmidt worked in marketing communications in California’s Silicon Valley and then ran an interior-design business for 16 years before dedicating her time to philanthropy through their Schmidt Family Foundation.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Ken and Martha Taylor gave $4 million toward the Cleveland museum’s $135 million expansion campaign. It will help build a 50,000-square-foot addition to the museum’s glass pyramid that was designed by the architect I.M. Pei and completed in 1995. When the new facility opens in 2026, the museum will name its community park after the Taylor family in recognition of their gift.
The Taylors own and operate Ohio CAT and Ohio Peterbilt, which sell and rent trucks, tractors, and other construction equipment in Cleveland.
Bethel College
The Mennonite college in Kansas has received a $3.4 million bequest from Donald Harder to augment the endowment of its Kauffman Museum, which houses exhibits about the Mennonite settlers of the Central Plains. The gift will additionally cover some of the museum’s personnel costs and updates to its equipment and facilities.
Harder was a rancher and grain farmer in the Whitewater area of Kansas. He died in 2021.
University of South Florida
Meghan and Steven Tauber pledged $1 million to endow a scholarship for students in the College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, with preference for students majoring in international studies or political science.
Steven Tauber has been a professor of political science at the university since 1995, and currently serves as vice provost for faculty administration. “I want to give back to my home department that I had a large hand in creating,” he said in a statement.
Meghan Tauber earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the university in 2006 and now owns Hogan Made, which sells T-shirts and other items featuring Tampa landmarks.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
