News Feature

Noteworthy Gifts

October 4, 2007

By any measure, the most outstanding gift of FY07 came when John W. Kluge CC’37 pledged $400 million for financial aid—$200 million for Columbia College and $200 million for other University schools. The gift was the largest in Ivy League history, the largest to any single university solely for financial aid, and one of the largest gifts in the history of American higher education. (Read more about the Kluge commitment.)

Other especially noteworthy gifts came from two alumni who created generous matching funds in support of professorships, enabling other donors to more easily endow faculty chairs. Columbia Trustee Gerry Lenfest LW’58 pledged $48 million—$37.5 million in support of the Arts and Sciences and $10.5 million in support of Columbia Law School—while Arthur J. Samberg BU’67 pledged $25 million to Columbia Business School.

We also recall the generosity of Robert Yik-Fong Tam BUS’50, a banker, and his sister, Wun Tsun Tam, an educator, who bequeathed a combined $29 million that will support a number of faculty positions and provide seed money for the Committee on Global Thought.
Apart from the pledges above, Columbia received many other gifts and pledges in FY07, all of them gratefully accepted. The following items represent highlights of FY07 fundraising across the University.