Retired Blackstone Executive and Wife Give $100 Million for Scholarships for Underrepresented Students

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Loyola University Chicago

John and Kathleen Schreiber gave $100 million to provide full scholarships including room and board plus a wide range of other support services to Black, Latino, first-generation, and other ethnically and racially diverse students. The scholarships will be provided to those students entering in the fall semester of Loyola’s 2022-2023 academic year.

The gift is the first donation toward Loyola officials’ plans to create a $500 million restricted portion of the university’s endowment to make the scholarships permanent so that more historically underrepresented students can attend the university.

John Schreiber retired in 2015 as a partner and co-founder of Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, where he oversaw all the New York investment firm’s real-estate holdings since 1992. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Loyola in 1968 and has served on the university’s Board of Trustees since 2014.

Texas A&M University

Arch (Beaver) Aplin III gave $50 million to establish an academic center and create programs in hospitality, retail studies, and food-product development, as well as degrees in viticulture, fermentation processes, coffee, and food science.

In addition, the new Aplin Center will house product-development and food-tasting laboratories, and it will include outdoor and indoor student recreational spaces, as well as retail and food-service areas managed by students and faculty through the educational programs.

Aplin earned a degree in construction science from the university in 1980. He founded Buc-ee’s, a gas station and convenience store company, two years later in Lake Jackson, Tex., and has since expanded the business nationally.

University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine

Michael Armellino gave $25 million to create the Armellino Center of Excellence for Williams Syndrome. The center will provide care and treatment to children and adults with Williams syndrome, a genetic condition that causes physical, cognitive, and social disabilities. People with the disorder are predisposed to cardiovascular and metabolic disease, as well as a variety of other medical conditions.

The university will partner with the Williams syndrome clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to augment clinical and social services and advance Williams syndrome research programs.

Armellino retired in 1994 as CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. A top research analyst of airline equities, he worked for the investment giant for 21 years and was its partner in charge of research until 1990 when he first retired. The firm asked him to return the following year to lead the asset-management division. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the university in 1961.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

John Brock III, his wife, Mary, and their three children — Rebecca Brock Dixon, John Brock IV, and Major Brock — gave $10 million to establish the Brock Family Center for Applied Innovation. The center will focus on supporting the work of Vanderbilt faculty and commercializing their discoveries in biomedical and health sciences.

John Brock III is a retired chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola European Partners (formerly Coca-Cola Enterprises). He previously served as CEO of InBev, an international brewery that makes Stella Artois, Beck’s, and other beer brands, and COO of Cadbury Schweppes global beverages division. Mary Brock is the former majority owner of the Atlanta Dream, a Women’s National Basketball Association team that was sold to an investor group last year.

Rebecca Brock Dixon, a 1999 Vanderbilt graduate, co-founded and is CEO of *gameHERs, a media platform and social network for women who game. John Brock IV is a co-owner and director of Envy Gaming, an esports company in Dallas. Major Brock works in digital marketing. All three serve on the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Board of Overseers.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Alice Walton gave $10 million through her Alice L. Walton Foundation to expand an endowment that supports an internship program for college students from racially and enthnically diverse backgrounds who want to establish careers as arts-organization leaders.

Specifically, the money will be used to hire an administrator for the program who will monitor the quality of the interns’ experience in the program, prepare interns for additional coursework and employment opportunities in the field, and track students’ careers for a minimum of five years following their time at Crystal Bridges. The museum has partnered in recent years with two historically Black colleges, Spelman College and Fisk University, to recruit interns for the program.

Walton is an heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune. She also founded the Llama Company, an investment firm, and was responsible for the development of the Crystal Bridges Museum and its collection of American art works. A serial donor who usually does not publicize her giving, Walton appeared on the Chronicle’s 2015 Philanthropy 50 list of biggest donors. She established the Alice L. Walton Foundation in 2017 to increase access to the arts, advance economic opportunity, and improve education and health for underserved populations.

Cornell University

Irene Rosenfeld and her husband, Richard Illgen, gave $5 million to establish the Rosenfeld/Illgen Scholarship, which is aimed at lessening students’ college debt. The gift will support 170 students attending any of the university’s colleges and schools in any area of study each year. Each scholarship student will receive a loan-reducing grant of $1,250 annually for the duration of their undergraduate experience.

Irene Rosenfeld is a former chairwoman and CEO of Mondelez International, an international snack-foods company. She served in those roles from 2011 to 2017 and as chairwoman and CEO of Kraft Foods from 2006 to 2011. She earned three degrees from Cornell: a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1975, a master’s degree in business in 1977, and a Ph.D. in marketing and statistics in 1980.

She started her career at the New York advertising agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample and then joined General Foods’s consumer research division. She later led Frito-Lay as CEO and chairwoman before joining Kraft Foods. Illgen is a business consultant.

Teachers College at Columbia University

Jody and John Arnhold gave $5 million through their Arnhold Foundation to create the Arnhold Dance Education Research Studios, which will house dance studios and spaces to advance teaching, learning, and research in dance education. The new space will also provide a venue for collaborations with cultural, educational, and local groups.

Jody Arnhold earned a master of arts degree in dance education from Teachers College in 1973 and taught dance in New York public schools for more than 20 years. John Arnhold co-founded Arnhold LLC, a New York investment firm. With this latest gift, the couple have donated a total of $15 million for dance education and research at Teachers College.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.