A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Gerald and Ronald Chan gave $100 million through their Morningside Foundation to establish the MIT Morningside Academy for Design, a new research center that will be housed in the School of Architecture and Planning. The new design academy is scheduled to launch in September and will facilitate and administer academic and research programs across MIT, especially between the School of Architecture and Planning and the School of Engineering.
Gerald Chan, who became U.S. a citizen in the 1970s, co-founded Morningside Group, a private-equity and venture-capital firm, with his brother Ronald. Their late father founded Hang Lung Group, a Hong Kong real-estate firm, and was a long-time supporter of education.
DePauw University
Sharon Ubben pledged $20 million toward the creation of a new School of Business and Leadership. She and her late husband, Timothy Ubben, both graduated from the university in 1958. Timothy Ubben died in December.
He co-founded Lincoln Capital Management, a Chicago investment firm in 1967. He retired from the company in 1999. The Ubbens have given to the university ever since their first $26 gift to the 1958 Annual Fund drive. They have endowed scholarships and established the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Endowed Lectureship in 1986. They gave the university a previous gift of $20 million in 2013.
In addition, the university is repurposing a $20 million gift it received from 1968 DePauw graduates Steve and Karen Sanger that the couple originally gave to establish the Sanger Leadership Initiative. The program will become a part of the new business school.
University of Oxford
Stephen Schwarzman gave approximately $33 million for the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, which is scheduled to open in 2025. The center was named for the donor in 2019 following his gift of roughly $188 million. The center will house the Institute for Ethics in AI, the Oxford Internet Institute, a new library, and exhibition and performance spaces.
Schwarzman co-founded and leads the Blackstone Group an investment management company in New York. He is a prolific donor to higher-education institutions and has focused significant portions of his giving in the last several years to university programs that work to ensure new technologies are harnessed for the betterment of society. He has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors five times.
Villanova University
Victor Maggitti Jr. gave $20 million to renovate the Falvey Memorial Library and build new spaces within the library for conferences and other campus events. Maggitti founded Vimco, a King of Prussia, Penn., company that manufactures and distributes construction supplies and accessories. He started the company in 1960 and continues to lead it today. Maggitti earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Villanova School of Business in 1956.
Rhode Island Foundation
Robert and Joyce Andrew left $12 million to establish the Robert G. and Joyce Andrew College Scholarship Fund to help Rhode Island high school graduates attend college in the state. The new fund is expected to generate enough income to provide nearly 100 scholarships a year.
The scholarships will be awarded to applicants who pursue their undergraduate studies at Bryant University, Providence College, Rhode Island College, Roger Williams University, the University of Rhode Island, or the Community College of Rhode Island within three years of graduating from a Rhode Island high school. The scholarships will be renewable for up to three additional academic years.
The Andrews grew up in Providence, R.I., and were commercial real-estate investors. They both worked in banking at different times throughout their careers. Robert Andrew worked for Fleet Bank and later started several small businesses. Joyce Andrew worked for Citizen’s Bank, in Providence, until she retired. She died in 2018, and he died in 2015.
Airbnb.org
The co-founders of the online lodging company Airbnb together pledged to match up to $10 million in contributions from other donors to support the company’s efforts to provide free short-term housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine.
Brian Chesky, Joseph Gebbia Jr., and Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife, Elizabeth, promised to match the donations through March 31, 2022, in an effort to house up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine. The nonprofit arm of the company is working with European agencies to connect refugees from Ukraine to housing. Gebbia appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors of 2020 for gifts he made to nonprofits that seek to help people struggling with homelessness.
Oregon Health & Science University
Norman and Linda Brenden gave $10 million to support research at the Brenden-Colson Center for Pancreatic Care and its efforts to develop new treatments for patients with pancreatic disease. Including this latest gift, the couple have given the center a total of $30 million.
Norman Brenden leads Colson & Colson Real Estate Development and Construction, in Salem, Ore., and other companies. The Brenden-Colson Center for Pancreatic Care and Brenden’s company are named for William Colson, Norman Brenden’s late friend and business partner. Colson died of cancer in 2007.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst College of Engineering
Jerome and Linda Paros gave $10 million to establish the Paros Center for Atmospheric Research, the Paros Chair of Atmospheric Research and Hazard Mitigation, and the Paros Fellows/Scholars Endowed Fund for graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships.
Researchers supported by the Paroses’ gift will work on efforts to translate research into improved hazardous weather predictions, alert systems, and policies as the intensity and frequency of storms and other extreme weather events increases.
Jerome Paros is a specialist in the field of geophysical measurements. He founded Paroscientific, Quartz Seismic Sensors, and related companies in Redmond, Wash. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the university in 1960.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
