THE BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDATION Annual Report 2010 - 2011 DEAR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS, The fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, was one of solid growth for the Brooklyn College Foundation. The number of contributions from alumni and friends continued to rise and the total value of gifts and pledges nearly doubled over the previous year. I am pleased to report that we are making considerable progress toward the $200 million goal of our Foundation for Success Campaign. Although the amount raised is impressive, the impact of these donations is what counts. Through the generosity of friends, alumni and private foundations, we were able to grant over 1,200 scholarships and awards. We have provided funding for students to take advantage of unique learning opportunities from New Orleans to Peru, from Paris to South Africa and, of course, right here in Brooklyn. And we have supported new facilities and equipment necessary to provide students with a 21st century education of the highest quality. As chair of the foundation, I am grateful to my fellow trustees for their engagement and leadership. The continuing impact of the foundation is due in large part to their strategic counsel and dedication. I am also grateful for the privilege to work alongside President Karen L. Gould. Under her leadership, Brooklyn College has charted an ambitious and exciting vision for the future with student success at its core. On behalf of the trustees and staff of the Brooklyn College Foundation, I want to thank everyone who has contributed to our mission to provide access to excellence for the students of this great institution. 2010 – 2011 We sincerely appreciate your support. Sincerely, A NNUAL REPOR Barry R. Feirstein ’74 Chair, Brooklyn College Foundation T | 1 DEAR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF BROOKLYN COLLEGE, Through the stewardship and provision of private support, the Brooklyn College Foundation is a vital partner in our mission to provide affordable access to excellent higher education. I wish to thank Chair Barry Feirstein for his leadership and each of the trustees who volunteer their time and expertise in spite of many competing worthy causes. As president, I see every day the impact of the foundation on our students and the college. The most visible example on our campus today is the construction of the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, a public-private partnership made possible through a $10 million donation from the Tow family and over $8 million from other alumni. The center will provide state-of-the-art facilities for our nationally recognized music and theater programs. The Magner Center for Career Development and Internships, an essential resource for our student body, is also made possible by private funding. Without it, significantly fewer of our students would have access to invaluable hands-on experience in their fields. Many more students would simply be unable to attend college were it not for scholarship funds available through the foundation. None of this would be possible without the generous support of alumni, friends, corporations and private foundations. Donated private funds provide a margin of excellence and the resources that enable access to students from all economic backgrounds. While every donation makes a meaningful difference, on the pages that follow you will read about three alumni who had a special impact this year on our current and future students: Yolanda Jacobs ’35, Murray Koppelman ’57 and Florence ION T Cohen Rosen ’59. On behalf of the entire college community, I extend each of 2010 – 2011 them our sincere appreciation. To those who contributed in FY11, we are also deeply grateful for your ongoing support. With your help, we will continue to build on the strong legacy of Brooklyn College for generations to come. A NNUAL REPOR Sincerely, T Karen L. Gould | 3 2 | BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDA 2 | BROOKLYN President INTRODUCTION At the dedication ceremony for our beautiful around the world to expand their global new campus in 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt imaginations and experiences. announced to the audience: “I am glad to come These contributions, and those like them, permit here today and to wish to Brooklyn College the us to provide financial access to our students fine and successful future that it deserves. You, through awards, prizes and scholarships. They here, are doing a great work. May it live through also allow us to grow and renew our campus, the generations to come. ...” We at the Brooklyn providing students with the state-of-the-art College Foundation have made it our mission to facilities and technology necessary for a 21st live up to Roosevelt’s words with a commitment century education of superior quality. to providing new generations of students with access to excellence. Our alumni exemplify the spirit of generosity. They have been blessed with opportunities ION This year we were able to continue that T and benefitted from the time they spent at the 2010 – 2011 commitment thanks in large part to the gifts college, and they recognize the value in making of three visionary alumni: Yolanda Jacobs ’35, a way for those who come after. It is due to Murray Koppelman ’57 and Florence Cohen their support –your support –that an excellent Rosen ’59. From Jacobs, we received a bequest A Brooklyn College education remains accessible NNUAL REPOR of more than $1.32 million to aid, through to students from all walks of life. It is because scholarship, needy and deserving students. of you that the great work of Brooklyn College Koppelman’s tenacity and $2.5 million donation is alive and well, and our students will prosper helped to secure a much-needed expansion for generations to come. T of our physical campus. And due to Rosen’s | 5 4 | BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDA 4 | BROOKLYN generosity, eight students traveled to locations Yolanda Jacobs ’35 made possible the dreams of an untold number of students by bequeathing a gift of more than $1.32 million to Brooklyn College. Ordinarily, the Brooklyn College Foundation is made aware of generous bequests in advance. Jacobs’ gift, however, came as a surprise. “We were never notified that she had passed,” says Stephanie Ehrlich, the foundation’s deputy director of development. “We only found out when we received the envelope from an attorney’s office with a check of more than $1.32 million and a copy of the will.” Our staff was anxious to learn more about Jacobs. After some preliminary research, we were put in contact with Eleazer Hirmes, Jacobs’ best friend and the trustee of Jacobs’ trust. Mr. Hirmes remembers her as a “sweet and kind person who enjoyed life and loved to laugh.” She indicated to Hirmes that, rather than have a building named after her, she wanted her gift to directly benefit the lives of students. Thus, the Iris G. Giannotta and Yolanda Jacobs Scholarship– named after Jacobs and her sister Iris, who also attended the college–will assist “needy and/or deserving students.” Students will be eligible to apply for the award, which will provide approximately $53,000 in funds annually, beginning in the 2012–13 academic year. Born in 1913, Jacobs attended the college just 12 years after the passage of the historic 19th Amendment, which finally granted women in the United States the right to vote and emboldened a generation of women and girls to participate more fully and independently in American society. As colleges expanded, women enjoyed increased opportunities to receive a college education. It was during this boom that Jacobs had the chance to attend Brooklyn College, the first coeducational public liberal arts institution in New York City. ION Jacobs was the daughter of songwriter Oreste Giannotta, an T Italian immigrant from Naples who arrived at Ellis Island in 2010 – 2011 1903. Giannotta eventually settled down with his family in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, about the same time that Jacobs and Iris enrolled at Brooklyn College. After graduating, Jacobs worked at Imperial Linens as manager of the foreign sales A department. There, she met and married her husband, Edwin. NNUAL REPOR When he passed away in 1980, Iris came to live with her in their Manhattan apartment.YOLANDA Iris died in 2006. Jacobs passed away four years later, on December 24, 2010, at the age of 97. Brooklyn College owes a debt of gratitude to Yolanda Jacobs, whose generosity will transform the lives of students for T | 7 generations to come. 6 | BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDA 6 | BROOKLYN JACOBS In 1929, when the land to build the newly established Brooklyn College was purchased, college administrators and state officials viewed the carefully tended golf course and Ringling Brothers’ Circus fairgrounds as the right place to build. The neighboring lot didn’t seem to hold much interest. The area bordering the east side of the proposed campus The idea was proposed to the administration and trustees was an awkwardly shaped triangle, home to the Scranton with the aid of a map that defined the property owned by the & Lehigh Coal Company’s towering storage facility and college in blue and the surrounding area in white. It was a a large stable. Throughout the day and into the night, the stark contrast, and it clearly demonstrated the potential value facility rumbled with coal falling down a long chute and into of the site. railroad cars. No one considered it a setting that would add “Anybody who looked at that map immediately understood much to the college. As the local Brooklyn Times reported at why we had to obtain that property,” said Sillen. the time, the site was judged to be “undesirable for a college environment.” The foundation began to meet with the property owner, a private equity company well-known for its reluctance to But that was 83 years ago.