A roundup of notable gifts compiled by The Chronicle:
Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Rob and Karen Hale made two gifts of $50 million each to support construction costs, patient care, and research programs.
Mr. Hale is the chief executive of Granite Telecommunications, and he and his wife both serve on various hospital boards.
The children’s hospital contribution will go toward construction costs of a new building that will include a heart center and a special unit for sick newborns. It will be named for the donors.
Brigham’s officials have not yet announced how they will use their gift, but they said in a news release that they plan to name a newly opened building the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine.
Johns Hopkins University
Investor Bill Miller III pledged $75 million to the Department of Philosophy for expansion, research, and student support. Mr. Miller was a philosophy Ph.D. student at Hopkins in the 1970s before moving on to Wall Street.
He founded Miller Value Partners and is famous in finance circles for beating Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index for 15 consecutive years when he was a portfolio manager at Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust.
He said in a news release that he credits his business success to the analytical training he developed as a graduate student.
Mr. Miller’s donation will create an endowed professorship for the head of the department, plus eight additional endowed professorships. The money will also endow support for junior faculty members, philosophy graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows.
Oregon State University
Gary Carlson pledged $50 million for the College of Veterinary Medicine, which has been named for him.
The gift will double the size of the OSU Small Animal Hospital and endow faculty and programs.
Dr. Carlson is a physician and partner in Dermatology Associates of Westlake Village, Calif. He graduated from the university in 1974.
Stockton Scholars
An anonymous donor gave $20 million through a donor-advised fund at the California Community Foundation to help create a program spearheaded by Stockton, Calif., Mayor Michael Tubbs, which seeks to ensure students from Stockton Unified School District can attend college even if their families can’t afford tuition.
Beginning with the graduating class of 2019, all Stockton Unified School District graduates who go straight to a four-year college program will receive $4,000 in financial aid, while students going directly to a two-year college or regionally accredited trade school will receive $1,000 in scholarship money.
Mr. Tubbs is leading an effort to raise $100 million for the scholarship program.
Gustavus Adolphus College
Bob and Cindy Peterson pledged $10 million to renovate and expand Nobel Hall of Science, and endow scholarships.
Of the total, $5 million will go toward and help raise additional donations for the building project. The remaining half will endow the Robert A. Peterson Distinguished Student Scholarship Fund, which the Petersons established in 2014 with a $1 million gift.
Mr. Peterson leads Melton Truck Lines, a trucking company in Tulsa, Okla. He graduated from Gustavus in 1974 with degrees in economics and environmental studies.
Suffolk University
Leonard Samia committed $10 million for scholarships for students from Massachusetts who have significant financial need.
Mr. Samia leads the Samia Companies, a family-owned residential and commercial real-estate firm.
He earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Suffolk in 1969. His daughter Olivia graduated from the university in 2012, and another daughter, Alexandra, earned a master’s degree there in 2011.
Brandeis University
Seymour Bluestone, a former rehabilitation doctor who visited Brandeis only once, left the university $8.4 million for scholarships for students in the Sustainable International Development program and the Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program. He died last year.
Dr. Bluestone created the Jesse F. and Dora H. Bluestone Scholarship, named for his parents, in 2001 to provide financial aid for up to five students in the sustainable-development program and help students in a transition-year program. The bequest will also support research and other efforts in the Center for Global Development and Sustainability.
Mr. Bluestone served as a medical officer in the U.S. Army in Korea from 1945 to 1947 and served for 10 years as director of the New York State Rehabilitation Hospital.
Prostate Cancer Foundation
Financier Robert Smith gave $2.5 million for research and care for African-American men with prostate cancer and to establish the Robert Frederick Smith Center of Precision Oncology Excellence in Chicago.
The new center will help veterans diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Mr. Smith is former chemical engineer who founded the private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners
According to the foundation, prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among male veterans. African-American men are 2.3 times more likely to die from the disease than other men. Mr. Smith’s gift will help speed up clinical investigations into that disparity and other research efforts.
He appeared on The Chronicle’s 2016 Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors for a number of large gifts he gave that year.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
