UCSD Receives $150 Million in Donations

More than 30,000 donors gave UC San Diego about $150.3 million in the 2012-13 fiscal year, a 15 percent increase over the previous year, the school announced Thursday.

“Private gifts fund support for students, construct academic and medical buildings, ensure excellent patient care, fuel research, foster the arts and promise a diverse student experience,” UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said. “Our donors, including a growing number of alumni, are coming forward in unprecedented ways to strengthen this institution.”

Nearly one-third of the giving was from public and private foundations. Alumni provide 15 percent, the largest portion ever by former students, the school said.

One alumnus made an anonymous gift of $18.5 million to the computer science and engineering department, the largest ever by a graduate. The schools said the money will fund new endowed faculty chairs, top-of-the-line teaching labs, support for graduate students and expanded mentoring and tutoring programs for the next generation of undergraduates.

“I made this gift to recognize the wonderful education I received and to assist the department in its efforts to reach even higher levels of excellence,” said the donor, a graduate of the Jacobs School of Engineering.

“It is my wish to ‘pay it forward,’ and I hope other alumni, at all giving levels, will consider doing the same.”

The top four donations were $6.05 million from the late Walter J. Zable, the founder of Cubic Corp., and his wife, Betty; a $4.6 million grant from the U.S. Hereditary Angioedema Association to create an endowed chair, endowed center and faculty support for research in angioedema; a $4.3 million grant from the Simons Foundation to the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences; and $4.3 million in gifts from Joan and Irwin Jacobs to support the Moores Cancer Center, Jacobs Scholars, Dean’s Excellence Innovation Fund, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, Division of Arts and Humanities and the Preuss School UCSD.

Major donations also came from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the charity of the man who started Microsoft along with Bill Gates; the Qualcomm Foundation; and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

— City News Service