A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of Maryland
Stephen Schanwald gave $18 million to his alma mater. Of the total, $10 million will support athletics programs, and $8 million will endow the sports management program within the university’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and provide scholarships for the program’s students.
Schanwald is a former sports executive. He worked for the Chicago Bulls basketball team for 28 years, where he led the team’s marketing and business operations. While still a student at the university, Schanwald took an unpaid internship in the university’s athletics department and worked under Russ Potts, who was then the first sports marketing director at a U.S. university.
After graduating from the university in 1977, Schanwald became the first director of sports promotions at the United States Air Force Academy, and went on to work for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago White Sox baseball teams. He joined the Bulls in 1987.
Vanderbilt University Law School
Sara Finley pledged $10 million to support research on how law, regulation, and public policy shape women’s experiences and opportunities in the workplace and beyond.
The money will establish the Sara J. Finley Chair in Women, Law and Policy, and endow a program for research, education, and advocacy relating to equal rights, equal opportunity, and nondiscrimination.
Finley is a retired lawyer and business executive. She served as senior vice president and general counsel of CVS Caremark Corporation (now CVS Health), where she worked for nearly 20 years before retiring in 2015. She earned a law degree from Vanderbilt in 1985 and started her career practicing law as an associate with Maynard, Cooper & Gale, a law firm in Birmingham, Ala.
Chapman University
Alex Hayden gave $5 million to establish the Alexander E. Hayden School of Real Estate within the George L. Argyros College of Business and Economics. The new school will house Chapman’s master’s degree in real estate and related courses.
Hayden is vice chairman at CBRE, an international commercial real estate services and investment company. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the university in 1995.
Quinnipiac University
William (Bill) and Barbara Weldon pledged $5 million to match donations from others to support scholarships for medical students in the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine. The scholarships will prioritize students pursuing careers in primary care or who plan to practice in rural communities.
The couple met at the university and married before graduating in 1971. Bill Weldon then joined the pharmaceutical and medical products giant Johnson & Johnson as a sales representative for the corporation’s McNeil Pharmaceutical division. He went on to lead the company’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery arm and later became the head of pharmaceutical operations. He was appointed CEO in 2002, and retired as chairman in 2012.
University of Pennsylvania
Scott Wieler and Mary Baily Wieler gave $5 million to establish the Wieler Family Professorship, a position that will focus on philanthropy. The faculty member will hold joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and in the Wharton School, the university’s business school.
Scott Wieler is a former chairman and CEO of DC Advisory US, a Washington investment bank. He founded Signal Hill, an investment advisory firm, in 2002, and earlier in his career led the media and communications investment division of Alex.Brown, an investment firm that is now part of Raymond James Financial. He earned an MBA from the Wharton School in 1987.
Mary Baily Wieler is a former CEO of the Museum Trustee Association, a Baltimore nonprofit that provides education programs, services, and resources to museum trustees and senior museum staff.
University of Wyoming
Jay and Karen Kemmerer gave $5 million to expand the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, Tourism and Hospitality Initiative, which will be renamed the Jay Kemmerer WORTH Institute. The institute will focus on advancing Wyoming’s tourism industry.
Jay Kemmerer’s family has deep roots in Wyoming. In the 1890s his family owned a coal mining business in southwestern Wyoming. In 1981, he and his father, John L. Kemmerer Jr., sold their mining interests to Gulf Oil, and in 1992 Jay Kemmerer bought the Jackson Hole Ski Corporation and developed it into the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, a popular skiing and snowboarding resort in Teton Village, Wyo.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
