A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Cornell University
Billionaire David Duffield pledged $100 million to expand Duffield Hall to encompass an adjoining building that has housed the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 1955. When completed, Duffield Hall will include more research space for the school’s quantum computing work and additional lab space for work in artificial intelligence, robotics, and semiconductor materials and devices.
Duffield co-founded PeopleSoft and Workday, two human resources software companies headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif. He also founded the software companies Integral Systems, Business Software Corporation, Information Associates, and Ridgeline, the last of which serves investment-management businesses. Duffield, whose net worth Forbes pegs at around $13 billion, earned a bachelor’s degree and an M.B.A. from the university in 1962 and 1964, respectively.
He has given extensively to his alma mater, including a $20 million donation in 1997 that named Duffield Hall. Duffield is also a longtime supporter of animal welfare programs through Maddie’s Fund, a nonprofit he and his wife, Cheryl, established in the 1990s to end animal shelters’ practice of euthanizing adoptable dogs and cats. The couple have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors three times.
Grove City College
David Rathburn left $70 million for financial aid and other programs. Of the total, Rathburn directed $52 million to the college’s financial aid endowment to support need- and merit-based scholarships. He earmarked the remaining $18 million to pay for campus building projects.
Rathburn founded the marine-interior outfitter US Joiner, and later sold it to the private equity firm J.F. Lehman & Company. He then served as vice chairman of Trident Marine Systems. A Grove City College alumnus, he earned degrees in accounting, business administration, and political science in 1979, and started his career at Price Waterhouse. He later joined Hopeman Brothers Marine Division of AWH Corporation and became president of the company in 1991.
Rathburn, who died last year at 66, served on the college’s Board of Trustees for 28 years. His bequest has boosted the college’s endowment to $270 million, a 25 percent increase, according to a news release.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lynne and Richard Pasculano gave $50 million to establish Pasculano Collaborative for Contemporary Dance, which will expand the New York performing arts center’s contemporary dance offerings. The collaborative will develop a series of contemporary dance performances for the winter and summer seasons, and support new commissions, opportunities for emerging dance artists, and audience engagement efforts.
Lynn Pasculano is an heiress. Her father, Harry Lebensfeld, founded United Industrial Syndicate, later called UIS, in 1945 when he bought a furniture manufacturer. He later acquired more than 20 other companies, including auto parts businesses and New England Confectionery. He sold UIS’s auto parts companies to the private equity giant Carlyle Group in 2003 for $800 million. Richard Pasculano worked for the company as its acquisitions manager and later as executive vice president.
University of South Florida
Arnie and Lauren Bellini gave $40 million to establish the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing. The new college will offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs in AI and cybersecurity, house a range of AI-driven research programs, and develop partnerships with government agencies, defense contractors, and large companies.
Arnie Bellini is CEO of Bellini Capital, an investment firm that backs technology companies. He founded ConnectWise, a Tampa, Fla., cybersecurity and IT services company and sold it to Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, in 2019 for roughly $1.5 billion.
University of California at Los Angeles
Joyce Brandman pledged $20 million through her Saul and Joyce Brandman Foundation to establish the Saul and Joyce Brandman Foundation Center for Lung Health, which will support medical research and training focused on chronic lung disease.
The money will also be used to endow one administrative chair and two academic chairs, as well as two funds that provide resources for current and future lung specialists at UCLA. They include: the Center for Lung Health director’s fund, to support the launch of the center and its ongoing research initiatives; and the Center for Lung Health pulmonary hypertension fund, which will back the work of the Saul Brandman Chair in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.
Joyce Brandman leads her family foundation. Her late husband, Saul, was a UCLA alumnus who served in the U.S. Navy during World War I and went on to co-found and lead a number of clothing manufacturers in Los Angeles, including Timely Trends, Tomboy of California, Jefferson Trading; and the real estate development firm, Domino Realty Management. Saul Brandman died in 2008.
California State University at Long Beach
Mario Giannini gave $10 million to establish and endow a Master of Arts degree program in translation and interpreting within the Clorinda Donato Center for Global Romance Languages and Translation Studies, and pay for scholarships for the center’s program, faculty and staff support, research, and other programs.
Giannini is executive co-chairman of Hamilton Lane, a private equity firm in Conshohocken, Pa. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from California State University at Northridge and law degrees from University of Virginia and Boston College. He served earlier in his career as executive vice president and general counsel of Industry Valley Insurance Company, deputy general counsel of Fidelity Bank, Philadelphia, and senior attorney at Continental Illinois Bank, Chicago.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
