Harvard receives $70 million gift from alumnus

Harvard University received its largest donation from a living benefactor last week when alumnus John Loeb and his wife Frances Lehman Loeb pledged $70.5 million to the school. This gift, which is the ninth-largest gift in the history of higher education, brings Harvard's on-going $2.1 billion fund-drive to over $861 million. The university already has a $6.2 billion endowment -- more than any other university in America. While Loeb has been an active donor to Harvard over the last four decades, he only recently decided on this latest gift, which represents the bulk of the couple's assets. He added that he saw this gift as a way to do a good deed and to save on inheritance tax -- as well as to make sure that his children were taken care of. "In my old age, it occurred to me that we could make a difference to our country, and do it with an institution that had staying power and that I was familiar with," Loeb told the New York Times. "After all, Harvard has been around more than 300 years." Harvard President Neil Rudenstine said he hopes this gift will encourage other people to consider giving large gifts to the school's capital campaign. Harvard College will receive $39.2 million of Loeb's endowment. This money will go toward the creation of six new endowed professorships and add to the endowment of 15 junior faculty positions the Loebs donated in 1982, as well as to financial aid and increasing the already-existing Loeb Scholarships. The Graduate School of Design, which Loeb helped renovate in the 1960s, will receive $17.2 million to support the Frances Loeb Library and to add to the Loeb Fellowship Program in Advanced Environmental Studies. And $11.8 million will go towards professorships and associate professorships at the School of Public Health. Also, $1.5 million will be given to the Loeb Drama Center, which was created in 1957, to help support undergraduate training and education. The final $800,000 of the money will be donated to the Memorial Church for the Humanist chaplaincy. According to Rudenstine, the timing of the actual gift is uncertain. Loeb set aside part of his estate as a deferred gift so the additions will not be immediate. The New York Times and Harvard Crimson contributed to this article.