The University of Michigan today announced its largest gift ever -- a $100-million pledge from Stephen M. Ross, a New York real-estate developer -- for its business school. Half of the gift will be paid out as a bequest after Mr. Ross dies, while the other $50-million will be paid over a number of years.
Mr. Ross, who graduated from the University of Michigan in 1962 with an undergraduate business degree, is chairman of the Related Companies, which among other projects built the Time Warner Center in New York City. The money, part of the business school's ongoing $350-million capital campaign, will be used to help pay for the redesign and partial reconstruction of the business school's existing campus and for its endowment.
In a statement, Mr. Ross said he is giving the money so that the business school can build "fine, functional and aesthetic facilities that make it possible for people to do their best work."
In honor of the pledge, the university has renamed its school the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Robert J. Dolan, dean of the business school, said Mr. Ross began talking about the gift three years ago after Mr. Dolan outlined his plans to make the business school one of the country's finest.
Previously, Mr. Ross has given the University $5-million for a new athletic center, $1-million to endow a real-estate professorship, and $50,000 for a humanities fellowship.
Separately, Tufts University in Medford, Mass., announced yesterday that it too has received its largest gift ever, $50-million from the Cummings Foundation, which was founded by Boston real-estate developer and newspaper publisher William S. Cummings and his wife, Joyce. The money has been pledged over the next 15 years to upgrade Tufts' veterinary school, which will be renamed the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts.
"This gift will help fund needed capital improvements, provide matching funds in support of major research proposals, and greatly strengthen both the educational and clinical mission of the school," said Dr. Philip Kosch, dean of the veterinary school.