The Cornerstone Legacy Society: Leaving your mark with a future gift to UAF

By Megan Bean

To some students, Ernest Patty may seem a vague figure from the university’s past, recognizable mostly as the namesake of UAF’s sports center.

But not to Catherine Dunleavy, a UAF mining engineering major originally from Kotzebue.

Patty was one of six original faculty members when classes opened at the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in 1922. He later served as the University of Alaska’s president from 1953 to 1960. Upon his death in 1976, Patty left a gift to fund a scholarship in memory of his late wife. To date, the Kathryn S. Patty Scholarship has made 34 awards to students.

Dunleavy, who graduated from Mat-Su Central School in 2015, is one of those students.

“Thanks to this scholarship, I was able to afford to go to school this semester, and purchase the books I needed,” she said in 2021. “This allowed me to focus on school. It was very beneficial and I am grateful. Thank you very much for offering this scholarship!”

Legacy gifts, such as the Patty Scholarship’s funding source, are contributions arranged in the present and bequeathed at a future date. Anyone with the sincere desire to help others can leave a legacy. Through planned giving, donations can create a lasting impact with endless possibilities. Many legacy gifts have supported students, inspired faculty and fueled ingenuity at UAF.

For decades, scores of generous alumni, friends, faculty and community members have had the forethought to include UAF in their estate plans. Planned gifts can come in many forms and support a variety of educational content. Donors can bequeath stocks, retirement accounts, real estate and proceeds from other assets, such as a condo or home.

Faculty support

Legacy gifts stand behind several endowed faculty professorships and chair positions at UAF. In the late 1970s, the Harold T. Caven Professorship in Business and Finance was established in his memory. Caven was a longtime Alaskan who first came to the state in 1943. He served as a director and as a vice president of the First National Bank of Anchorage.

Endowed faculty positions like this professorship are crucial for recruiting and retaining faculty. Legacy institutions attract the best minds, the most creative researchers and the most engaged teachers.

One professor can reach hundreds of lives through the courses they teach, their mentoring relationships with students and their own academic work. These talented scholars attract and retain outstanding students.

The late James Pruitt ’73 showed how one person can have this kind of influence. Pruitt, a who earned a bachelor's in business administration, had been giving to UAF and its alumni association since 1974. In 2013, he established the Green Island Scholarship to support students in the School of Management. In his estate, he included a $3.4 million gift to create an endowed chair at what is today the College of Business and Security Management.

A number of donors have notified the university of their plans to support faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Let the UAF Development Office know if that is something you are considering.

Unrestricted gifts answer the greatest needs

Unrestricted gifts provide flexible spending to address the university’s areas of greatest need. They can support people — students, faculty and staff — or purchase items such as equipment, books and even technology upgrades.

In 1975, the Fairbanks campus received its first unrestricted gift from the estate of Edby Davis, establishing the Edby Davis Memorial Endowment.

The late John R. and Mary G. Claus have established one of UAF’s longest records of unrestricted legacy donations. Since the early 2000s, their estate has given UAF annual generous support, now totaling more than $400,000.

John Claus was born in Rochester, New York, and attended the University of Alaska in 1936. He was a longtime merchant, civic leader and philanthropist in Fairbanks. John met Mary Gould in Fairbanks, and they were married for 56 years before she passed away in 1998.

The impact of the Claus’ unrestricted planned gift continues today through annual distributions of nearly $25,000. In recent years, this funding has been used to support the summer programming and research taken on by faculty and staff. The Claus' fund also has helped expand training and development opportunities for faculty, staff and students.

Student support

Alumni have always had our back. UAF graduates are a growing segment of our donors.

One of UAF’s largest single estate gifts came from Marjorie ’58 and Leonard Wright, in support of scholarships. The Wrights came to Alaska in 1953 and spent more than two and a half decades here. Marjorie completed her teaching degree at UAF, then went on to teach in North Pole. Leonard established a construction business.

The Wrights never forgot Alaska and visited over the years after they left the state. Leonard passed away in 2007. When Marjorie died in 2013 at the age of 91, their estate provided more than $2.5 million to UAF to support student scholarships. To date, 266 students have received funding from the endowment. Their philanthropic legacy is helping generations of students fulfill their educational goals.

“Without the support of community scholarships, students like me would be unable to pursue advanced degrees,” said Emillie Ficek ’19, a biology graduate who received a 2020-2021 Wright Scholarship to help continue her studies in the UAF-Colorado State University veterinary program. “With this financial assistance, my goal to give back to my community is ever closer.”

The estate of Nathan “Nat” Gerson ‘39 has given more than $2.1 million to UAF by endowing scholarships for students who have overcome great adversity. The Gerson Family Memorial Scholarship has now provided more than 190 students with awards.

With a $650,000 estate gift, the Calvin J. Lensink Endowment was created to support graduate students and research focused on wildlife management, ecology and the environment. Lensink ‘54 also left an in-kind donation of books and Alaska Native artwork to UAF. Lensink received a master’s degree in wildlife management from UAF. He studied marten in Alaska and then earned his Ph.D. at Perdue University in 1962 with his research into Alaska sea otters. Lensink remained in Alaska for his professional career as both a field biologist and administrator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Charles and Gerry Collins, both ’74, have invested in UAF students for nearly 20 years. Together they have established the endowed Charles Malcolm and Geraldine Vrbka Collins Geology Scholarship, which provides scholarships for students studying geosciences at UAF. Through current and planned giving tools, they’ve built a plan to support students substantially in the future.

Most recently, an estate gift of nearly $2 million created the Annette McFayden Clark and Donald W. Clark Endowed Scholarship to support students at UAF. Donald earned a geology degree in 1956. Although their endowment is still in the growth period, once matured, it will provide more than $75,000 annually in scholarship support.

Programmatic support

With nine colleges and schools offering 187 degrees and certificates in 106 disciplines, UAF offers benefactors many options. UAF donors are supporting programs and initiatives — from Arctic engineering and student activities to research and outreach programs — that will change the world.

One of the most significant legacy gifts in UAF’s history was made by Brina Kessel, a renowned ornithologist and UAF professor, dean and museum curator emeritus. At her death in 2016, Kessel left $7.5 million to UAF. Her love of Alaska and its avian treasures led to a lifetime of exploration, while her modest lifestyle and dedication to her work complemented her quiet prowess in investing.

Kessel’s multimillion-dollar estate gift inspired the Brina Kessel Fund for Northern Ornithology, which supports programs to better understand the birds of Alaska, Berengia and the associated seas of the region.

UAF also has received several estate gifts to support engineering.

James E. Moody, a professional engineer from Fairbanks, gave $25,000 in memory of his parents, L.E. and Alaska Linck, for an endowment to support the UAF Steel Bridge Team, a student squad that often places well in regional and national competitions. Last summer, Richard Nyman’s estate gave to his endowment that supports the Institute of Northern Engineering.

John Mitsuru Ebisu ’69, ’79 dedicated a portion of his estate to support civil engineering students at UAF. Ebisu wanted to give back to the university that provided him with a remarkable education and to assist others in obtaining the same. Engineering students will benefit from Ebisu’s generosity in perpetuity — currently the endowment provides them with roughly $8,400 per year.

UAF now has more than 80 living members in the UAF Cornerstone Legacy Society — a recognition program for those who have included UAF in their estate plans. While this support has not yet taken place, the generosity of these benefactors will be seen far into the future, benefiting students, faculty and programs for years to come.