The Daily Tell

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.

Teach for America, an educational organization that places recent college graduates in low income public schools nationwide, is slated to be the recipient of $100 million in order to launch its first endowment, enabling the organization to become consistent in its educational initiatives.

Four philanthropists collaborated on the endeavor to establish a long-running source of funding. This year, the organization had more than 46,000 applicants for its 4,400 available teaching positions.

Eli Broad pledged $25 million from his Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and encouraged others to make similar commitments. The Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and philanthropists Steve and Sue Mandel all followed suit. Initially, the funding will only produce 2 percent of Teach for America's $200 million budget, but this figure will grow over time.

"A few years ago we embraced the priority of making Teach For America an enduring American institution that can thrive as long as the problem we're working to address persists," said founder Wendy Kopp, who created the program as her undergraduate thesis in 1990, to the Associated Press.

"I think it's only appropriate in our country, which aspires to be a place of equal opportunity, that we have an institution which is about our future leaders making good on that promise," she added.

One-third of the organization's alumni continue teaching after their two years of service and every two out of three stay within the field, according to the source. With a steady revenue, Kopp hopes that Teach for America can double its number of active members to 15,000, while increasing the number of communities it reaches from 39 to 60.

A major donor to the University of Connecticut, Robert G. Burton, is demanding the university return his $3 million donation. Citing disagreements with the athletic director and the hiring of the new football coach, Burton wants his donation returned and his family name taken off the Burton Family Football Complex. Additionally, he plans to and will cease all additional funding. He informed the university of his intentions in a six-page letter, according to The Day.

The letter claimed that Burton had requested to be kept informed about the hiring process for a new football coach and was interested in offering insight regarding potential candidates. He was not included in the hiring process and claimed that philosophical disagreements with UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway are the reasons why he chose to end his involvement.

"The primary reason [former coach] Randy [Edsall] took another job is because he couldn't work with you," Burton wrote in the letter to Hathaway, the source noted.

"You are not qualified to be a Division I AD, and I would have fired you a long time ago. You do not have the skills to manage and cultivate new donors," he continued.

Burton has chosen not to pay for a $50,000-a-year luxury suite, support the football team via an $8,000 advertising endeavor or contribute to the university's coaching clinic. He will transfer his scholarship support initially planned for the football program to the business school.

The university's athletic department disputes Burton's version of what has happened.

"Many people, including Mr. Burton, shared their ideas about potential candidates with us … UConn's donors represent a vital aspect of the university, and we respect and appreciate their thoughts and views on various issues," the university said, the source reported.

A major donor to the University of Connecticut, Robert G. Burton, is demanding the university return his $3 million donation. Citing disagreements with the athletic director and the hiring of the new football coach, Burton wants his donation returned and his family name taken off the Burton Family Football Complex. Additionally, he plans to and will cease all additional funding. He informed the university of his intentions in a six-page letter, according to The Day.

The letter claimed that Burton had requested to be kept informed about the hiring process for a new football coach and was interested in offering insight regarding potential candidates. He was not included in the hiring process and claimed that philosophical disagreements with UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway are the reasons why he chose to end his involvement.

"The primary reason [former coach] Randy [Edsall] took another job is because he couldn't work with you," Burton wrote in the letter to Hathaway, the source noted.

"You are not qualified to be a Division I AD, and I would have fired you a long time ago. You do not have the skills to manage and cultivate new donors," he continued.

Burton has chosen not to pay for a $50,000-a-year luxury suite, support the football team via an $8,000 advertising endeavor or contribute to the university's coaching clinic. He will transfer his scholarship support initially planned for the football program to the business school.

The university's athletic department disputes Burton's version of what has happened.

"Many people, including Mr. Burton, shared their ideas about potential candidates with us … UConn's donors represent a vital aspect of the university, and we respect and appreciate their thoughts and views on various issues," the university said, the source reported.

A new round of funding from the Next Generation Learning Challenges will help seventh through ninth grade students develop math and literacy skills. The funding provides up to $10 million to technologists, educators, entrepreneurs and institutions working to create technology tools for education.

Next Generation is partially supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and recently received a $1.4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to advance funding opportunities for innovators. The initiative was launched in October and is expected to announce its first round of grant recipients soon and will then continue to award grants every six to 12 months.

"This initiative has the potential to help change how the next generation of students learns," said Paul Brest, Hewlett Foundation president.

"Technology has a great role to play in advancing 'deeper learning', an approach to improving education that helps students achieve a critical combination of the fundamental knowledge and practical skills they will need to succeed in a fiercely competitive global economy."

Leading the Next Generation initiative is Educause, a nonprofit organization that works to improve and advance higher education learning via technology, which is teaming up with a network of organizations to collaborate on intersecting education and technology.

"We support innovators who want to harness the power of technology to help more young people get into and through college, ready to succeed in the workplace," said Ira Fuchs, executive director for Next Generation Learning Challenges.

"We must accelerate the use of learning tools that hold tremendous promise to help meet this challenge," Fuchs added.

Next Generation will be begin reviewing proposals in March and announce the winners in June of this year. Qualifying proposals must outline approaches to help students develop skills in mastering seventh, eighth and ninth-grade curriculum.

In order to create a senior conservator position for the Duke University Libraries, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has donated $1.25 million to the libraries institution.

Over the next three years, the libraries must raise $1 million to fully endow the position, with $250,000 being used to appoint a new person to fill the position before the endowment is fully funded.

"We could not realize our most ambitious goals without the Mellon Foundation's generous support," said Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway, university librarian and vice provost for library affairs.

"Our research collections are both deep and diverse in coverage and a powerful draw to scholars working in many disciplines. By improving our ability to preserve these materials for the next generation, this grant is supporting not just Duke, but the entire scholarly community," she added.

A third of Duke's Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library require conservation treatment. These holdings include more than 350,000 printed volumes, 20 million manuscripts, 200,000 photographs and ancient papyri. To make these materials accessible to researchers, the university must preserve them. By adding a senior conservator to its team, Duke's departmental level of expertise will increase, as will opportunities for outreach and conservation education to the local community.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has supported other Duke University Libraries initiatives, including developing a portal to international papyrus access, an open-source library system and campus-wide strategies for managing and preserving the university's digital assets.

The United Negro College Fund and Capital One Financial Corporation are teaming up to offer a financial education money management programs to more than 50 historically black colleges and universities nationwide. The programs are expected to reach more than 50,000 students in its first year and build on UNCF's financial literacy initiative.

Capital One Financial Scholars Program is powered using a 3-D educational gaming platform by EverFi. The platform discusses student loan management, opening a bank account, budgeting, credit scores, stocks and bonds, credit cards and debt management, paying taxes and the decision between home ownership and renting by bringing the topics to life.

"The financial commitments and choices college students make today can impact their lives for years and even decades into the future, yet most students have never taken a personal finance class and are unprepared to make these important decisions," said Michael L. Lomax, UNCF president and CEO. "The goal for this program is to help our students develop practical money management skills and avoid common financial mistakes.

"Capital One's commitment to financial education is commendable, and we are thankful for the company's support in bringing this innovative educational platform to thousands of students across the country.," Lomax added.

Several of the participating colleges and universities plan on incorporating the program into their orientation schedules. The program is unique from others in that it continuously assesses students' progress, providing a certificate of completion upon demonstration once students complete it. 

Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown University has received a $2 million grant to establish a project at the University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, that will explore religious liberty and its relationship to democracy and the struggle against extremism.

Funding for the project comes from the John Templeton Foundation, the mission of which is to be a "philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life's biggest questions, ranging from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity."

Berkley Center senior fellow Thomas Farr will lead the project. From 1999 to 2003, Farr lead the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom. The Berkley Center was created in March 2006 and is dedicated to building knowledge and promoting religious understanding.

"At a moment when religious freedom is under siege around the world, the Religious Freedom Project will mobilize scholars, promote teaching, support policymakers and inform a wider public about the value of religious liberty," Farr told the university.

Students will examine religious liberty and its relation to democracy, extremism, international diplomacy and economic and social development. The project will sponsor events, publications, courses and policy consultations designed to generate and disseminate knowledge regarding religious freedom between scholars, experts, professors and the public over the next three years.

"I am convinced that the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown’s Berkley Center is of critical importance to the defense of religious freedom around the world and will turn out to be one of the most important strategic investments in freedom that the foundation has ever made," Kent Hill, vice president of character development for the Templeton Foundation, told the source.

Private businesses in one Virginia county are helping increase funds to the local public school system, thanks to a partnership between the local chamber of commerce and the public schools.

The Washington Post reports that the newly established Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce Public Schools Education Foundation will give the public schools in the county the opportunity to get funding from private industry in order to combat the ongoing budget shortfalls. Fairfax County superintendent Jack D. Dale said that, though other foundations have raised money in the past, the current funds would give help to a number of different areas that needed money.

"This foundation is a vehicle for much broader philanthropic contributions than the other organization, which had a singular focus on technology," said Jack D. Dale, superintendent of Fairfax County public schools.

Previously, in 2009, the county school system raised $330,000 from the Fairfax Education Foundation, which stipulated that the funds needed to be devoted to technology concerns. The head of the foundation said that he was proud of his group's efforts.

"The development of major technological projects that our foundation was undertaking had a longer development cycle, and our fundraising was project-based," said Fairfax Education Foundation Chief Executive James S. Rosebush.

The newest foundation aims to help young people and provide the necessary knowledge for those who will join the working world in the next few years.

"The goal is to make Fairfax County and Northern Virginia a world-class place to live, work and go to school," said Jim Corcoran, president and chief executive of the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce.
"In developing schools, we're also developing our future work force."

There has been other budgetary news for Fairfax Public Schools in recent weeks. The Washington Post reported that in late December, Dale announced a proposal to give school workers a pay raise. 

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced grants totaling nearly $5 million to three Nigerian universities, intended to help education centers prepare their graduates to address the nation's challenges.

Nigeria, located in western Africa, is home to more than 120 million people who belong to approximately 250 distinct ethnic groups and speak more than 4,000 dialects, though English is widely spoken. The country is home to many centers of higher learning and has one of the highest literacy rates in all of Africa.

With the new grants from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, three of Nigeria's leading universities – the University of Ibadan, the University of Port Harcourt and Ahmadu Bello Univeristy – will work to build national expertise in key disciplines, broaden their connections and network with other universities in Africa and abroad. Additionally, the universities hope that the grants aid them in recruiting women into the new academic programs.

Initiatives supported by the grants will include a veterinary epidemiology program, an 18-month master's program on child and adolescent mental health and doctoral programs in energy and petroleum economics, among others.

"MacArthur's support of Nigerian higher education is based on the belief that robust universities and intellectual freedom are essential to developing and sustaining healthy, economically vibrant, democratic societies," said Kole Shettima, MacArthur's Nigeria Office Director. "Support to these specific departments will help position these universities to address national challenges in such critical areas as health, energy, and economic planning."