December 13, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
A retired communications executive has given $60-million to the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, for the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration.
The amount is the largest ever given to a business school, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The gift also pushes the university’s capital campaign past its $1-billion goal.
Frank Batten, Sr., the retired chairman of Landmark Communications, an international media company with holdings that include The Virginian-Pilot newspaper and the Weather Channel, designated his gift to further entrepreneurship. He graduated from the university’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1950.
Plans call for the donation to support professorships, scholarships, a fellows program to bring business executives to the school, and a venture-capital fund that students can mine to test entrepreneurial projects.
Those programs will be housed at the Batten Institute, the successor to the Batten Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, which the media executive established with a $13.5-million gift in 1996.
In addition, officials at the Darden School plan to open an office in northern Virginia — an area that has become home to a number of new companies, especially in the high-technology field.
The university’s capital campaign has raised $1.036-billion to date. The university announced in October 1995 that it was seeking $750-million. In February 1998, with $670-million in hand, it raised the goal to $1-billion.
The university will continue the campaign until December 2000.
