A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Colgate University
John Hoyns gave $20 million to support financial aid. A lawyer who has represented clients in the aviation industry for more than 35 years, Hoyns is senior counsel at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, a New York law firm where he previously served as the co-chairman of the firm’s aviation group. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Colgate in 1976.
Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center and St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation
John Webber left $9 million apiece to these two Bangor, Me., health care institutions. His bequest to Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center will support a range of efforts, and his bequest to St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation will pay for improvements to inpatient and surgical-care facilities.
Webber grew up Bangor, Me., where his family owned lucrative timberland and lumber businesses. He attended local schools there before joining the U.S. Marine Corps. He returned home after his military service to attend the University of Maine, where he graduated in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in art. He died last year at 78.
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
Wallis Annenberg gave $10 million to kick off the center’s capital campaign to raise $55 million over five years to support artistic programming, expand access to world-class arts education, enhance and preserve the beauty and functionality of the center’s Beverly Hills, Calif., campus, and support the endowment. She gave the 10-year-old performing-arts center $25 million more than a decade ago to transform the former Beverly Hills post office building into the arts complex.
Annenberg is an heiress to a publishing fortune who leads her family’s billion-dollar grant maker, the Annenberg Foundation. Her father, Walter Hubert Annenberg, ran Triangle Publications, which owned The Philadelphia Inquirer, TV Guide, Seventeen magazine, and other media outlets. Her grandfather Moses Annenberg started the company in the 1930s.
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Paul English pledged $5 million to establish the Paul English Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute, which will incorporate the study of the social, ethical, and diversity challenges and opportunities associated with artificial intelligence into academic programs across the university. The goal is to give the university’s students in every field the tools to shape the increasingly AI-powered world of work.
English founded multiple technology companies, including Boston Venture Studio, Deets, Kayak, Moonbeam, and Reki. He has also co-founded several nonprofit organizations, including the Bipolar Social Club, Embrace Boston, Summits Education in Haiti, and Winter Walk for Homelessness. English earned his bachelor’s (1987) and master’s (1989) degrees in computer science at the university.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
