USC Receives Gift of $200 Million from Alumnus

College Search & Selection
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<p>The LA Times reported USC will receive a $200 million donation from alumnus David Dornsife and his wife, Dana. This is the largest gift ever given to the university. The gift has been designated for USC College. It will be renamed in their honor as the USC David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Both of Mr. Dornsife's parents are alumni.</p>

<p>The Dornsifes have made other donations to USC of $21 million, mainly to support research in neuroscience and the work of Dr. Antonio Damasio.</p>

<p>In this fiscal year USC has received other major donations:</p>

<p>Alumnus Ming Hsieh gave $50 million for a cancer research institute.</p>

<p>Annenberg Foundation and Wallis Annenberg donated $50 million to build a new complex for the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.</p>

<p>Annenberg Foundation added $10 million for scholarships.</p>

<p>Microsoft gave a large gift to the School of Cinematic Arts for the Interactive Entertainment major.</p>

<p>Alfred Mann donated $3 million in honor of his brother, Robert Mann, for a Thornton School of Music Robert Mann Endowed Chair for Violin. The Jascha Heifetz Endowed Chair for Violin is held by Midori. </p>

<p>Alfred Mann in past years donated $112.5 million for the Mann Institute of Biomedical Engineering.</p>

<p>There have been other donations, but these have been announced publically.</p>

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<p>Hope some of the money goes into the humanities.</p>

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<p>and the rich just keep on getting richer…</p>

<p>this is part of the reason why USC has improved in academics significantly over the last 15 years…going from a university ranked in the 40’s to one in the low 20’s.</p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. News Rankings Through the Years](<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070908192041/chronicle.com/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities&orgs=&sort=2007]U.S”>U.S. News Rankings Through the Years)</p>

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<p>Somebody deserves a nice raise. In reality these types of gifts are years in the making and involve more than one person but the results speak for themselves. If you want to build a great university money is a good place to start.</p>

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<p>Mmm. Is there any chance that because so many donations have been made, it’ll all balance out and leave USC with a gigantic pool of merit scholarship money? That would be nice…</p>

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<p>[Dorsifes</a> Donate](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0309-usc-gift-20110309,0,2879936.story]Dorsifes”>Couple to give record $200-million gift to USC)</p>

<p>You have to like the unrestricted nature of the gift, and first I’ve ever heard of naming rights for College of Letters and Sciences. Great idea…</p>

<p>Btw, Alfred Mann is a UCLA alumnus in Physics, I believe. Dr. Mann, your alma mater can use a few bucks also.</p>

<p>I think Ming Hsieh is probably the best Trojan grad ever - high tech, high achieving, a lot like an MIT, Cal Tech grad in engineering.</p>

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<p>… [Ming</a> Hsieh’s Bio](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Hsieh]Ming”>Ming Hsieh - Wikipedia) from wikipedia</p>

<p>Here’s [Mr</a> Mann’s Bio](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Mann]Mr”>Alfred E. Mann - Wikipedia), from the same. I guess he’s not a PHD.</p>

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<p>go donors, go! Maybe in 20 years college will be affordable.</p>

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<p>Interesting. From WIKI</p>

<p>"As an alumnus of UCLA, he tried to make a substantial monetary gift to his alma mater to fund a bioengineering institute. However, the donation failed over Mr. Mann’s desire to retain control over patents and patent revenues generated by the institute. The $162 million gift eventually went to USC, a private institution that agreed to his terms.[5]
On March 16, 2007 Purdue University received a $100 million endowment from the Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering. The endowment is the largest research gift ever at the university, and will create the Alfred Mann Institute at Purdue.[6]
"</p>

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<p>Yeah, UCLA messed things up, it fell through and USC got the benefit. I wasn’t going to state this. ; )</p>

<p>USC’s accounting school is named for another UCLA alumnus, whom, I believe, tried to set up an accounting school at his alma also. Same for an arm of the Marshall Bus School.</p>

<p>UCLA, up until recently has been slow in trying to cultivate these relationships and adamant in things being “its terms,” that lead to super-large donations. Things have changed significantly for public schools and I’m sure UCLA’s attitude has changed.</p>

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<p>Drax,
The engineering school has had successful alumni donors who excelled in technical fields. The most famous is Andrew Viterbi who donated 52 million. Mark Stevens gave 22 million and Ken Klein pledged 8 million. Mark Stevens donated 22 million to fund the Stevens Institute and John Mork contributed 15 million.</p>

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<p>Viterbi’s a masters grad, not undergrad alum. The others, I don’t know.</p>

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<p>Viterbi earned his Ph.D. from SC. He is an alumnus. Biographies of the other donors mentioned can be found on the USC website or using a search engine.</p>

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<p>Since this is a undergrad selection board, I tend to be a little restrictive towards undergrad alumni. </p>

<p>And I guess he would seemingly fit the profile for MIT/CIT grads because he is: BS/MS from MIT.</p>

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<p>It would be interesting to see what these terms were such that UCLA declined such a large gift.</p>

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<p>drax, the donation is on topic, however, because it affects future undergrads of USC</p>

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<p>Glad to see from the LA Times article that some of the money will go to the humanities.
It looks like President Nikias will be as skilled a fund raiser as former President Sample. </p>

<p>Trojan Parent (of an alum, thankfully).</p>

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<p>Undoubtedly, as well as grads…</p>

<p>I should have said, it’s more my failing if I consider a true alum, where one has done undergrad.</p>

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<p>Mr Mann is an business man just like anyone else. Don’t let his technological genius deceive you wrt to his bus acumen.</p>

<p>He’s essentially providing seed money and expects to receive a return. </p>

<p>The u’s do all the legwork, hiring all the researchers, etc, and Mr Mann gets the patents they derive, all under the umbrella of the u’s.</p>

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<p>drax12,
Here are some brief notes on John Mork…</p>

<p>John Mork received his BS in Pertroleum Engineering from USC. He is the President and CEO of the Energy Corp. of America. He also serves as the Director of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Mr. Mork donated 15 million to the Viterbi School of Engineering and is a donor to the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC.</p>

<p>His gift named the Mork Family Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. The department supports interdisciplinary research in chemical engineering, materials science and petroleum engineering.</p>

<p>Some information about Mark Stevens…</p>

<p>Mark Stevens earned his BSEE, MSCENG and a degree in economics from USC. He is a General Partner of Sequoia Capital. Mr. Stevens was listed on Forbes List of 100 Top Venture Capitalists at #10. He now serves on the USC Board of Trustees. His 22 million donation helped establish the Stevens Institute for Innovation within the Viterbi School.
He is also on the Viterbi School of Engineering Board of Councilors.</p>

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<p>

These are some very classy people…</p>

<p>Talk about tacky.</p>