A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
New York University, Stern School of Business
The business school has received a commitment of $53.6 million from Anne Tasca to back scholarships for undergraduate and MBA students. The planned bequest will also pay for study abroad and travel opportunities for students, and endow a faculty chair named for her father, the economist and American diplomat Henry Tasca.
Anne Tasca, a dual American and Italian citizen, leads the Rome real-estate firm Edilizia Rosazza SRL, alongside her sister. She was born in France, attended high school in England, studied in Switzerland, and in her thirties, earned a bachelor’s degree from Stern in 1988 while she worked for Citibank. Tasca now serves on the President’s Global Council at NYU.
Heritage Foundation
Diana Davis Spencer has pledged $25 million over five years through her Diana Davis Spencer Foundation. Her gift will advance the conservative think tank’s policy goals, specifically with respect to communism in China, accountability for big technology companies, free enterprise, strengthening the U.S. military, and individual freedom.
Spencer is president of her foundation. She inherited a large fortune from her father, who was the founder of Shelby Cullom Davis & Company, an eponymous investment bank in New York.
University of California at Los Angeles
Andrea and Donald Goodman and Renee and Meyer Luskin jointly donated $20 million to establish a new institute to study the microbiome and its effects on health. Each couple gave $10 million.
The Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center will conduct research on the healthy bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live in human bodies and the role that gut health plays in disease prevention and immune response. The goal of the center is to develop new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, eating disorders, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, substance use and psychiatric disorders, and other health conditions.
Donald Goodman is the founder and president of Don Lee Farms, a company that makes food products for national grocery-store chains.
Meyer Luskin is president and CEO of Scope Industries, a company in Santa Monica, Calif., that recycles bakery waste to make animal feed. The Luskins are both UCLA alumni. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1949; Renee Luskin graduated in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
Spelman College
Rosemary and John Brown gave $10 million to the historically Black college for women to help build and equip the Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., Center for Innovation and the Arts, its new hub for entrepreneurship as well as cross-disciplinary programs in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. It is expected to open in the fall of 2024.
John Brown is the former CEO and chairman of the Stryker Corporation, a medical-device company based in Kalamazoo, Mich. Rosemary Brown retired after 30 years as a math teacher. Their daughter Janine Brown sits on Spelman’s Board of Trustees.
Emory & Henry College
The liberal-arts college in Virginia has received a bequest of $2 million from Carol (Bill) Gatton through his Bill Gatton Foundation to name the arena at its new equine center. Construction on the equestrian complex is expected to begin next year.
Gatton was a car dealer in Kingsport, Tenn., who owned dealerships in Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. He died last year at age 89.
University of Oklahoma
Robert Stephenson left $1.2 million to the university’s baseball program. His bequest matches a $5.1 million challenge pledge from Brian and Kim Kimrey to renovate its baseball stadium.
After playing shortstop for the university’s baseball team from 1948 through 1950, Stephenson served in the U.S. Army for two years in the Korean War before going on to play professionally for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1955. He later co-founded the Potts-Stephenson Exploration Company, an oil-drilling company, and owned several radio stations in Oklahoma. He died in 2020.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
