17. RAY and MARIA STATA–$25 million to MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY for a new computer-sciences center from Ray Stata, the founder of Analog Devices, and his wife. The gift, the largest made to an MIT building project, will expand facilities for one of the fastest-growing programs at the university. It will also consolidate related disciplines now scattered across campus and off-campus, officials said. Ray Stata, a 1957 graduate of MIT, became a multimillionaire by building his electronic-components company into a $1.2-billion manufacturer. “Probably the two most important things that have changed my life are where I went to school, MIT, and the woman I married,” he said. The MIT Corp.’s executive committee has voted to name the complex for him and his wife, Maria, who endowed a faculty chair in 1984. Ray Stata has served on the executive committee since then and has headed the visiting committee of the department of electrical engineering and computer science since 1985.
22. E.W. KELLEY–$23 million to INDIANA UNIVERSITY for the business school, which will be renamed the Kelley School of Business. The gift is the largest in the university’s history and will offer 10 full undergraduate scholarships each year, beginning next fall. Kelley is chairman and majority stockholder of Consolidated Products Inc., the parent company of Steak ‘n Shake and Consolidated Specialty Restaurants. He is also chairman of Fairmont Snacks Group Inc. and Kelley Restaurants Inc., and has major holdings in Indiana and Florida agribusinesses. His wife, Wilma, received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from IU and has been an alumni leader. Their three children are all IU alumni.
23. ALBERT J. and CELIA S. WEATHERHEAD–$21million over the next 10 years through their Clevela nd-based family foundation to HARVARD UNIVERSITY (Mass.) for the Center for International Affairs, which will be renamed the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Albert Weatherhead is a 1950 graduate of Harvard College and Celia a graduate of Tulane University. Their family foundation has given more than $18 million in just this decade to universities, including Case Western Reserve (the Weatherhead School of Management), Harvard, Tulane, Columbia, and the University of Texas at Houston.
24. KENNETH BEHRING–$20 million to the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION (Washington, D.C.), the single largest gift in the institution’s 151-year history. The gift will be used to update the Museum of Natural History with state-of-the-art equipment and to make it more user-friendly. The mammal hall, to be completed in 2002, will be named for the Behring family. Kenneth Behring is a former owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team. “You get to the point where you suddenly look at yourself, look at the country you are in and realize it has been extremely good to you and it is time to give a little back,” said Behring, 69, who grew up in Monroe, Wisc., and started selling cars as a teen. In 1950, he opened his own used-car lot with 27 cars. Soon he owned a new-car dealership whose success enabled him to go into land development in the late 1950s. In Florida and later in California, he built a series of planned communities and other real-estate developments. He said he approached a few museums, but they didn’t consider his renovation concept “a top priority.” Initially Behring considered the Smithsonian out of his reach. “I thought the Smithsonian was really above anything I could help with,” he said in an interview.
24. DONALD BREN–Total 1997 contributions: $20 million. This includes: $15 million to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA BARBARA to fund five faculty chairs in the graduate school of environmental science and management, which will be renamed in his honor. The gift from the 65-year-old owner of the Irvine Co. is the largest to date for the Santa Barbara campus. Bren’s donations to the University of California now total more than $25 million, and include the endowment of a total of 15 faculty chairs. Also: a $5-million contribution to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT IRVINE that will endow five new Bren Fellows at UCI, where they will lead pioneering research in molecular medicine focusing initially on cancer and human genetics at the planned Molecular Medicine Research Laboratory. The five fellowships are in addition to five already endowed in the Bren name at UCI. Bren has endowed more chairs than any other single donor at any of the nine campuses in the UC system.
24. LEWIS and DOROTHY CULLMAN–Total 1997 contributions: $20 million. This includes a $10-million commitment to YALE UNIVERSITY (Conn.) from this alumnus and CEO of Cullman Ventures (to renovate Yale’s Branford College), and another $10 million to the Scholars and Writers Center at the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. “You must stress,” said Dorothy Cullman in an interview with the New York Times, “that the money is being given in honor of [philanthropist] Brooke Astor, to recognize her enormous contribution to poetry, the library, and New York.” Together the Cullmans have pledged or donated more than $80 million, mostly to civic and cultural institutions in New York City, and are known to officials at nonprofit institutions as “dream patrons.” “They are hugely generous, highly intelligent, and participate without pulling rank,” said Robert Marx, director of the New Yor k Public Library for the Performing Arts, which has received $12.5 million of the $30 million that the Cullmans have pledged to the library in the last five years. “And they give, often anonymously, with no strings attached.” Cullman is the CEO of Cullman Ventures, which includes the At-A-Glance Group, manufacturer of calendars and related products. He also serves on the board of directors of General American Investors Inc.
24. DAVID A. DUFFIELD–$20 million to CORNELL UNIVERSITY (N.Y.) to provide laboratory space and multimedia classrooms in science and engineering for training the next generation of scientists and engineers at the nanostructure frontier, to enhance the understanding of materials at the atomic and molecular level that make technological advances possible. One of the largest ever received by Cornell, this is the lead gift in support of the construction of a new campus facility to be named Duffield Hall. Duffield is president, CEO, chairman and founder of PeopleSoft Inc., a computer-software development company based in Pleasanton, Calif. Before founding PeopleSoft, he created two mainframe applications-software companies, Integral Systems and Information Associates. He began his career at IBM as a marketing representative and systems engineer. Duffield also gave $2 million to Cornell, his alma mater, in 1995.
24. GERALD J. FORD–$20 million to SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY from Ford, who is the chairman of the board, CEO, and a principal shareholder of California Federal Bank FSB, and an SMU alumnus and member of its board of trustees. In recognition of this gift, SMU’s football stadium will be named Gerald J. Ford Stadium. Ford says he owes his success to the education and preparation for life he received as an SMU student in the 1960s. “My goal was to provide a benefit to students by bringing Mustang football back to the Hilltop and providing an attractive venue for other university activities,” he said.
24. JOSEPHINE FORD–$20 million to the CENTER FOR CREATIVE STUDIES in Detroit, the largest single gift to a private college in Michigan. The school’s new classroom building will be named for the donor’s late husband, Walter Buhl Ford II, an architect and descendent o f the historic Buhl family of Detroit. Walter Ford married Josephine Clay Ford of the automotive family. Walter Buhl Ford III said that his father spend 30 years as chairman of the board of the school and loved the institution. His mother decided to make the gift because the plans so closely matched her late husband’s vision for the school.
24. JOHN P. and ANN KAUFFMAN–$20 million in cash and property to the COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY (Va.). The gift will allow the Virginia Institute of Marine Science/School of Marine Science to eventually establish a satellite campus on the Rappahannock River. The gift–which includes a house and 7 acres valued at about $2 million, a future bequest valued at more than $10 million, and two trust funds–is by far the largest in the history of the college. The Kauffmans have no direct ties to William and Mary but became familiar with the institute’s work while visiting their estate on the Rappahannock. Their other home is in Darien, Conn.
