A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Shahid and Ann Margaret Khan and their children, Tony and Shanna, Khan, gave $15 million to support the integrated-oncology program at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital and establish three endowed faculty chairs: for an oncologic surgeon, a medical oncologist focused on patient care, and a medical oncologist focused on translational medicine to advance cancer treatment. The money will also be used to expand the nursing staff for the oncology services. All four donors are University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni.
Shahid Khan is a billionaire who owns Flex-N-Gate, a manufacturer and supplier of large plastic and metal parts for the automotive industry. He also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars, a professional U.S. football team, and Fulham Football Club, a soccer team in England. He co-owns with his son the American wrestling promotion company All Elite Wrestling.
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahid Khan came to the United States in 1967 to attend the university. He supported himself during his college years by working at Flex-N-Gate and was hired as engineering director of the company after graduating in 1971. In 1978, he founded Bumper Works, which manufactured car bumpers, and in 1980, he bought Flex-N-Gate and folded Bumper Works into the company. Khan became a U.S. citizen in 1991.
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian
Audrey Steele Burnand left $106 million to support the medical center’s advanced research and patient-care programs. Burnand inherited her fortune from her parents, Harry and Grace Steele. Harry Steele founded U.S. Electrical Motors. The company merged with Emerson Electric in 1962, and Emerson remains a Fortune 500 company. Burnand died in 2020 at 98. The Steeles lived in Pasadena, Calif., but spent summers in Newport Beach, where Hoag’s flagship hospital is located.
City of Hope Orange County Lennar Foundation Cancer Center
Julia and George Argyros gave $25 million through their Argyros Family Foundation to support cancer research and treatment programs. The center’s garden will be named for the Argyros family.
George Argyros is a billionaire who founded Arnel & Affiliates, a real-estate development and management company in Costa Mesa, Calif., in 1968 and is its CEO. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain and Andorra from 2001 to 2004. The couple have given tens of millions to City of Hope’s various Southern California medical centers for four decades.
Centre College
Jack Schuler gave $20 million through his Schuler Education Foundation to back the college’s $50 million effort to provide scholarships to underserved students. Schuler is an investor in pharmaceutical and health care companies and a former president and COO of Abbott Laboratories, a medical-device and health care company in Chicago.
The donation is the latest Schuler has given through the foundation, which he started to fund the Schuler Access Initiative, a program he established to help more low-income students or those with undocumented status attend U.S. liberal-arts colleges. Schuler plans to devote $500 million to the effort over the next 10 years and have up to 20 liberal-arts colleges participating.
Centre College is the latest among 10 institutions selected for the program so far. The others are Barnard College, Bates College, Carleton College, College of the Holy Cross, Kenyon College, Scripps College, Trinity College, Tufts University, and Union College.
University of Portland
Darlene Marcos Shiley gave $10 million to establish the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation, which will house programs where engineering and computer-science students will work with those studying the arts, humanities, nursing, education, and business on projects aimed at finding solutions to societal problems.
Shiley is the widow of Donald Shiley, inventor of Pfizer’s Bjork-Shiley heart valve and founder of Shiley Inc., a medical-device manufacturer in Irvine, Calif., that was sold to Pfizer in 1979. Donald Shiley graduated from the university in 1951, and its School of Engineering is named for him. The new building that will house the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation is scheduled to be completed by the end of November 2023 and is being built near the Shiley School of Engineering.
Darlene Marcos Shiley has given extensively to various nonprofits over the years. She appeared on the Chronicle’s 2012 Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors for several donations she gave that year.
American Academy in Berlin
Carol Kahn Strauss gave $2.4 million to establish an endowed fellowship in Jewish Studies. Academy officials plan to name the fellowship for Strauss, who led the Leo Baeck Institute for 21 years before retiring at the end of 2015.
Strauss is a respected figure in German-Jewish relations and recipient of the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit and Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She served as executive director and international director of the Baeck Institute, a research library and archive focused on the history of German-speaking Jewish people. She has also worked with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hudson Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the 20th Century Fund.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
