A gift that gives back
Courtesy of PBWS
CSUCI receives $15 million gift from philanthropists MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett
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by PAMELA DEAN
$15 million donation from MacKenzie Scott and her husband Dan Jewett will help CSUCI expand proven initiatives that support student success, engage in robust academic planning, and grow the physical campus by subsidizing new and renovated building projects. The gift was announced last June as part of a round of $2.7 billion in funding Scott and Jewett gave to 286 charitable and educational organizations. Scott noted it “would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.” The unrestricted donation is the University’s largest one-time gift to date. “This gift could not have come at a more critical time in our history,” said Interim President Richard
Yao. “The generosity of MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett is a testament to the data that reflects the incredible work our faculty, staff and administration are doing every day to eliminate equity gaps and increase the social mobility of our students by creating powerful academic and co-curricular programs that support student success and graduation. We could not be more grateful for their generosity as we recognize the transformative power that this level of support has for our students and campus.” In a recent blog post, Scott wrote, “Higher education is a proven pathway to opportunity, so we looked for two- and four-year institutions successfully educating students who come from communities that have been chronically underserved.” It is not surprising that the only four-year public university in Ventura County caught the attention ABOVE A conceptual rendering of CSUCI's Early Childhood Education Center RIGHT MacKenzie Scott and her husband Dan Jewett
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