The Daily Tell

Atlanta-based Emory University has seen a boost in financial aid funding to students through Emory Advantage, thanks to a $14.4 million endowment from the estate of James E. Varner, Jr., an alumnus of the college who died March 6, 2010. The aid will benefit qualifying students within the college of arts and sciences. Varner graduated from Emory in 1943 with a degree in economics and left the majority of his estate to Emory in support of its students.

"Emory Advantage grows out of the core belief that we simply cannot succeed unless we retain the ability to recruit to Emory the sort of vibrant, talented, diverse, exciting student body that enhances the Emory experience for everyone, and strengthens every aspect of the institution," said Robin Forman, dean of Emory College.

"This requires that we remain a destination university for all students that we would like to see join us, independent of their financial means. This gift is, in every way, a significant investment in the future of these students, the college and the university," he added.

In 2007, Emory Advantage was established in order to benefit qualifying undergraduate students whose families had a total annual income of less than $100,000. The grants reduce the amount of educational debt for students at Emory's Oxford College, College of Arts and Sciences, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and Goizueta Business School. Thus far, 1,300 students have benefited from Emory Advantage.

Throughout the current the academic year, the program has extended more than $6.3 million in financial aid awards to students at Emory University. Approximately $4.2 million of that funding went to support those undergraduates attending the Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

Complete College America has launched a $10 million competitive grant program, Completion Innovation Challenge. The initiative aims to boost the number of students completing college nationally and to close educational-attainment gaps.

Through the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Completion Innovation Challenge invites governors across the country to submit proposals to improve college completion rates within their states via innovative stategies. Winning proposals will receieve one of 10 available $1 million, 18-month implementation grants. Those states that best produce plans to develop state-wide strategies to increase college completion rates at a substantial level will be awarded grants.

"Simply doing more of the same will not achieve the gains necessary to significantly raise student achievement and ensure America's competitiveness," said Stan Jones, president of Complete College America.

Within the U.S., only half of students who pursue a four-year, full-time degree actually complete it within six years. Furthermore, less than two out of 10 students who pursue an associate's degree full-time complete it within three years. Those students who pursue degrees part-time see even worse results.

Complete College America aims to help states reform education in key targeted areas, including increasing funding to reward students for performance, transforming remediation tactics to see students move along into first-year, full-credit classes quickly, restructuring educational delivery to help students balance work and school and the deployment of technology to accelerate and support learning.

Ohio State University has announced its largest gift ever of $100 million, with $65 million from Leslie Wexner and the additional $35 million from Limited Brands Foundation. The funding will go to benefit the university's medical center and The Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. A select portion of the funding will also go to benefit the university's Wexner Center for the arts and other initiatives at the school.

Wexner is an alumni of Ohio State, graduating from its business administration program in 1959 and founding Limited Brands in Columbus four years later. The company has since risen to a $9 billion firm, with more than 2,600 stores nationally. Wexner serves as the university's chair of the Board of Trustees and helped found The Ohio State University Foundation. He has extended almost $200 million to Ohio State.

"I've always believed that you have to do good while doing well," said Wexner in a statement.

"It's not enough to succeed in business. You have to give back. Ohio State's Medical Center and The James do critically important work. My hope is this gift can help save lives, and maybe even help to cure cancer. It is certainly within our grasp," he added.

Ohio State also recently received a $100 million grant for a construction project at its Medical Center from the Health Resources and Services Administration, which was awarded to the university through a program created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The funding will help support ProjectONE, the school's largest construction project, which aims to expand its Medical Center. The project is slated to finish in 2014 and will include a new cancer hospital, critical care tower, outpatient center and research laboratories, according to Healthcare Finance News.

The University of California at Los Angeles will establish a community-based fund to support medical research and academic programming at the university and a variety of charity work across the country. The endeavors are being funded by a private foundation's gift of $200 million.

Las Vegas-based Lincy Fund will finance the Dream Fund. The Lincy Fund was first establisged in 1989 by Las Vegas resort and casino investor Kirk Kerkorian, who named his fund after his daughters. Once the Lincy Fund transfers its capital to the Dream Fund, it will cease operations. Prior philanthropic efforts include more than $1 billion in donations to schools, hospitals and Armenian charities, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported.

"The UCLA Foundation and the entire UCLA community are grateful for a magnificent act of support by a private foundation," said Gene Block, chancellor of UCLA.

"Mr. Kerkorian and the Lincy Foundation have a long history of major charitable giving, and the UCLA Foundation is honored to have been entrusted to continue their mission," he added.

The Dream Fund will be managed and administered by the UCLA Foundation. It will support nonprofit organizations and will work to solve social problems in addition to creating challenge grants. Furthermore, it will match funds for scholarships and endowed faculty chairs at the school. Because the money will be used to encourage a boost in donations, the funds will stimulate more philanthropy to UCLA rather than being used as the "be-all, end-all," the Chronicle reported.

According to UCLA, the Dream Fund will adjust to the needs of society and will constantly search for funding partners and recipients worthy of its support.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts-based Berkshire Community College has received a $1 million endowment for its Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, which supports non-credit bearing educational programs for lifelong learners above the age of 50. This is the second $1 million endowment that the institute has seen from The Bernard Osher Foundation and sets the program apart from the other 118 OLLI programs nationwide as one of 18 to receive this level of funding.

The initial $1 million challenged the Berkshire OLLI to reach 500 members before it could receive the funding, but in May 2009, it received its first award by reaching 883 members. Its second $1 million award was contingent upon the OLLI reaching 1,000 annually paying members, which it met in September. The OLLI currently has 1,063 members who pay an annual membership fee of $50, according to the Berkshire Eagle. The average program member is 70 years old and remains active.

"This program at BCC has earned the distinction of being one of only a handful of [OLLI] programs at colleges around the country that have been recognized by the Osher Foundation at the two million dollar level," said Dr. Paul Raverta, president of Berkshire Community College.

OLLI is committed to lifelong learning and supports a multifaceted experience by offering courses, lectures, trips and special events. Courses run year-round and professors teach pro-bono. OLLI offers a range of course topics, from ballroom dance to modern science and even a film club, which begins this spring.

The Bernard Osher Foundation supports OLLI programs nationally, with at least one program in every state and in the District of Columbia.

"This is a place where people retire. They come here for culture. We can offer that," said OLLI liaison Arthur Sherman to the Berkshire Eagle.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has extended a $2.1 million grant to the New Tech Network, which is a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks, in an effort to help the high school development organization expand its capacity to focus on teaching that is more relevant and aligned with the Common Core State Standards.

The Cincinnati, Ohio-based organization functions in 62 high schools across 14 states. It will use the funding to promote the importance of deeper learning, helping to prepare high school students for college and future careers. It will develop online and professional opportunities that will offer teachers support as the organizations continues to expand nationally.

"New Tech Network offers a re-imagined teaching and learning environment that high school students find engaging and teachers find empowering," said Lydia Dobyns, New Tech Network president.

"The grant provided by the Gates Foundation enables us to expand our core capacity and partner with public school districts around the country that are committed to transforming high schools to be aligned with 21st century skills. We aren't simply aiming for high school diplomas, our model prepares students for post-secondary success, whether that is a community college, university or other training programs," she added.

New Tech Network aims to improve projects developed by teachers that are related to student literacy and will introduce modules that help students understand math. It will also create a training environment that integrates its learning management system with technology in educational environments.

The University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School are receiving a $6.5 million charitable gift from Barry Lipman to establish the Lipman Family Prize. The prize will be annually awarded to an organization committed to having a positive social impact and creating sustainable social solutions. Lipman is a Wharton School alumnus, class of 1970 and co-founder of California law firm Goldfarb Lipman.

Each year, the winning organization will receive a $100,000 cash award and will be granted the opportunity to continue a relationship with the university and the Wharton School, including collaborating with Wharton Executive Education, working with faculty researchers, internships with graduate students and course content development. Finalists will receive the same benefits, save the cash award.

The award will place emphasis on leadership, innovation, social impact and transferability. It will be a major award with a global scope and could serve as a catalyst for the winning organization via media outreach, financial rewards and scholarly attention.

"We are very grateful to Barry Lipman for his visionary generosity, which allows us to honor organizations that are committed to innovative, transferable means of creating global social impact," said UPenn president Amy Gutmann.

"The Lipman Family Prize reflects Penn's dedication to the discovery of new knowledge that can improve the world," she added.

Winners will be chosen by a steering committee of university faculty and staff members, including those from the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, the Center for Leadership and Change Management, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships and the School of Social Policy and Practice. The application process will launch later in the year and the first award ceremony will be held during the spring of next year.

Charitable contributions to higher education institutions reached $28 billion last year, marking, a 0.5 percent increase for the year. When the figure is adjusted for inflation, though, it shows a drop of 0.6 percent, according to a report by the Council for Aid to Education.

Additionally, the Voluntary Support of Education survey found that, although higher education support is back to its 2006 levels in current dollars, it is actually 8 percent lower when inflation is considered. Charitable giving to universities and colleges across the nation hit bottom in 2009, down 11.9 percent from the year before, but a full recovery has yet to come.

"We're still not out of the woods," said Ann Kaplan, director of the VSE survey.

"Charitable contributions to education are recovering very slowly … As long as the economy continues to improve, we can expect further improvement in giving, even if incremental at first," she added.

The survey revealed that that those institutions that raised the most in funding last year gained $7.15 billion, which is still $130 million less than what the nation's top 20 higher education institutions made in 2009. At the top of the list was Stanford University, which raised $598.9 million, Harvard, raising $597 million and John Hopkins, which raised $427.6 million. All three universities raised less last year than they did the year before.

Those top 20 institutions only represent 2 percent of the 996 survey respondents, but their contributions account for more than 25.5 percent of all higher education gifts received last year. Additionally, more than half of the respondents noted an increase in charitable contributions in 2010. Liberal arts colleges saw the greatest increase at 2.9 percent after seeing one of the greatest declines the year before at 18.3 percent.

In an effort to provide up to 200 four-year scholarships to students who have similar values and vision as President Ronald Reagan, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and GE have teamed up to launch the GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship Program. The scholarships will span the length of the next ten years.

GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship applicants must meet specific qualifications based on
their leadership, drive, integrity and citizenship. Annually, the foundation will select 20 applicants to receive a $10,000 scholarship that will be renewable for three additional years, totalling $40,000 per student. The funds can be utilized for tuition and room and board for a student pursuing a bachelor's degree at an accredited college or university within the U.S.

"Ronald Reagan believed in educating and inspiring the future leaders of tomorrow," said Frederick Ryan, chairman of the board of trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.

"The GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship Program enables us to continue this tradition and keep his spirit alive among the youth of today," he added.

Additionally, GE is sponsoring the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration with a $15 million grant in honor of a year-long celebration for the president's 100th birthday on February 6, 2011. The company committed $5 million of the funding to establish the scholarship program and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation is allocating an additional $3 million.

Ronald Reagan worked for GE from 1954 through 1962 as the host of General Electric Theater, a weekly television series. He traveled as a GE spokesman to 139 GE plants and met more than 250,000 employees, featuring their work and promoting GE products.

Qualified scholarship applicants may apply online before March 18, 2011. They must be nominated by a community leader and recipients will be recognized at a ceremony this summer. 

Winston Chung has committed $10 million to the University of California at Riverside in support of clean battery power, solar energy and sustainable transportation research at the school's Bourns College of Engineering. Chung is a battery technology scientist, inventor of the rare earth lithium yttrium battery and an entrepreneur. He is the founder of Winston Global Energy Limited and his donation will mark the largest ever received by UC Riverside.

"The University of California, Riverside welcomes Mr. Winston Chung as an integral partner in our educational and research mission," said Timothy White, chancellor of UC Riverside

"His investment in this university will result in generations of students and faculty sharing their knowledge with local and global communities, and in new materials and new energy sources for an energy-hungry world. This gift is a wonderful testimony to the current strengths and aspirational future of the UCR Bourns College of Engineering," he added.

The grant will be used to create two named professorships within energy innovation and sustainability and will establish a Winston Chung Global Energy Center within the Bourns College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research and Technology. The university will also rename one of its engineering buildings Winston Chung Hall.

The Winston Chung Center will focus on the uses associated with the inventor's rare earth battery, bio-inspired technology and the development of clean energy and energy storage.

"Mr. Chung has created a clean and efficient energy storage that is an expression of a sustainable future," said Reza Abbaschian, dean of the Bourns College of Engineering.

"We are talking about vehicles that go for 180 miles on a single charge and can be recharged in the time it takes to stop and drink a cup of coffee," he added.

Abbaschian expressed his excitement for research collaborations and the opportunities that the gift will bring for engineering students.