Scholarships set precedent
Anonymous donor continues funding of honors scholars

By SUZANNE CHAMBERLAIN
Reporter Contributor

The Distinguished Honors Scholars Program will graduate its largest group of honors scholars-23-this month, thanks to an anonymous donor whose scholarship gifts are setting a precedent.

The anonymous donor, whose latest cash gift of $800,000 brings the total the donor has given over the past six years to $5.6 million, is pleased that UB alumni and friends are joining in the effort.

"I continue to be happy with the quality of students named as Distinguished Honors Scholars, and am especially pleased that other generous individuals recognize the value of supporting these top students and have begun to make additional contributions," the donor said.

This generosity, in turn, has helped to motivate gifts and pledges, such as a $365,000 bequest commitment by '50 and '53 alumnus Burton Greenstein and an anonymous $150,000 charitable remainder trust gift from a 1949 UB graduate. In addition, UB Council Chair Jeremy M. Jacobs, Sr. has designated a portion of his annual $100,000 gift to UB for honors scholarships.

The late Eleanor Millonzi was an early supporter of the program, creating the Robert I. and Eleanor V. Millonzi Distinguished Honors Scholarship for the Creative and Performing Arts, now in its second year. Two additional donors are looking to the future of Western New York and are finalizing details that will specify their support for Buffalo-area honors students who are committed to staying in this region.

"We are immensely grateful to the anonymous donor for initial and continued gifts and the additional support those gifts are engendering because this program has done phenomenal things for the students," said Josephine A. Capuana, administrative director for the University Honors Program.

"It's enabled them to take their studies very seriously and not worry about how to pay for their undergraduate education," Capuana noted. "It also has afforded them wonderful opportunities for different research experiences or study-abroad situations that they would not have had without the Distinguished Honors Scholars Program."

While the donor remains anonymous, the donor's intentions are clear: "The primary goal of renewing this gift is to support bright students for whom college might not otherwise be affordable and to encourage other donors to support this important priority."

Capuana said the strategy is working. "The greatest satisfaction for me," she said, "is seeing the huge difference in the way these students view their lives and their education, all made possible by the anonymous donor."

Begun in 1995 with 10 students who graduated last year and an initial $1.6 million dollar gift from the anonymous donor, the program has 23 graduating seniors, 18 juniors, 23 sophomores and 11 freshmen.

Capuana said most of the seniors plan to continue their education; six will remain at UB in the professional schools, while others are enrolling in graduate programs across the country. She said a few are swapping classrooms for careers, with one headed for the National Institutes of Health in biomedical research, another becoming an engineer with General Electric and a third joining Proctor and Gamble as a chemical engineer.

Capuana said 15-18 incoming freshmen will become the newest scholars to join the UB Distinguished Honors Scholars Program in the fall.