By Michael R. Hobbs
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. has been promised a gift of stock valued at approximately $340 million. The gift is among the highest ever made to an American university.
The gift of stock in the computer products firm Ingram Micro, Inc. comes from Martha R. Ingram, whose family has long supported Vanderbilt.
"This gift is of incalculable importance to Vanderbilt," says Vanderbilt Chancellor Joe B. Wyatt. "It is unprecedented in size and stands alongside Cornelius Vanderbilt's founding gift 125 years ago as a singular landmark in the history of this University."
Only a 1994 gift of approximately $500 million of real estate and art to New York University by Sir Harold Acton ranked larger, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
A fund established by the Ingram family of Nashville - the Ingram Charitable Fund - has received 20 million shares of Ingram Micro Inc. stock. The fund dedicates at least 40 percent of its income and assets for Vanderbilt. The fund has received 8 million shares of Ingram Micro stock. Two million of those shares already have been given to the university. Ingram Micro shares closed Monday at $42.50 a share.
Ingram Micro, based in Santa Ana, Calif., is the world's largest wholesale distributor of technology products and service, with sales of $20.9 billion for the last four quarters.
The gift will support Vanderbilt's programs in teaching, research, health care, public service and athletics. Specific designations for the gift were not announced.
The Ingram Charitable Fund was created by Martha and E. Bronson Ingram, who was president of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust from 1991 until his death in 1995. Ingram also chaired the University's last capital campaign, which raised more than $560 million in gifts, pledges and planned bequests by the time it ended in 1995.
He also played an important role in the history and founding of Ingram Micro. Martha Ingram, who succeeded her husband as chairman of Ingram Industries, is a member of the Vanderbilt board.
The Ingram family has a 50-year association with Vanderbilt, the school says. Bronson Ingram's father, Orrin Henry Ingram, served on the University's Board of Trust from 1952 to 1963. Three of the Ingrams' four children graduated from Vanderbilt.
Michael R. Hobbs can be reached at
mrhobbs@mindspring.com
