Your Gifts at Work Archives
  

		Ted and Elena Anderson “You’re not only building the value of your diploma when you give, but you’re helping the University reach its goals,” said Anderson, who was instrumental in starting the UAlbany Lawyers Association and also sits on the boards of The University at Albany Foundation and the Alumni Association Anderson said the University continues to be a valuable resource to him. “Since I have become involved at the University, I have built relationships that have been beneficial to my practice and my career. It’s a lifelong relationship, but it’s a two-way street. We’re hoping this leadership gift will inspire a stronger tradition of alumni giving, and that it will become part of a pattern.” Compared to the support other major universities enjoy from their alumni, “we’re just not there yet,” he added. The Andersons’ latest commitment is undesignated. Through an earlier gift of $25,000 three years ago, they endowed a Presidential Scholarship in Elena’s name. A political science major, Ted Anderson later earned a law degree from Southern Methodist University. He is now a partner in the law firm of Kilgore and Kilgore in Dallas, Tex. Elena Anderson, who graduated with a degree in accounting, had a highly successful career in finance and banking before retiring to raise their children, Katie, 11, and Alexander, 9. She serves on the boards of several charitable organizations, including the Lakewood Women’s Service League and the Dallas Housing Crisis Center. Anderson, B.A.’82, and his wife, Elena Rodrigues Anderson, B.S.’82, recently pledged $100,000 to the University, in gratitude for the life start they received at UAlbany and to underscore the importance of alumni support for their alma mater.
		Marjorie Ferrugio Delmar, B.A.’58, M.A.’63 Now, nearly 45 years after earning her bachelor’s degree, Marjorie Delmar is opening windows of opportunity – for UAlbany students and faculty. Through The University at Albany Foundation, she has made two bequests to establish endowments. A $450,000 bequest is to provide two graduate fellowships to students who aspire to teach at the secondary level. The other, for $250,000, benefits the Center for Jewish Studies by sponsoring visiting lectureships, securing rare books and manuscripts for the Jewish Studies collections, and promoting and coordinating the international exchange programs at UAlbany and other State University of New York schools. “I hope more monies will be allocated for each, in time. I’d like to contribute a total of $1 million,” Delmar adds. The New York State College for Teachers exceeded all her expectations. Says Delmar: “I shall never forget the people I met there; they had a tremendous impact on my life. I appreciate all the memories I have and the wonderful education I received. ” She retired in 1992 after teaching social studies and psychology for 35 years at Oceanside High School in Long Island.
		Terri Boor Completed in the fall of 2002, the one-story, 20,000-square-foot building will be known as the Boor Sculpture Studio. It will house sculpture and three-dimensional activity for the art department and its students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition to high-ceilinged individual studio/offices for faculty and graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts program, it will feature a beginning sculpture/figure modeling classroom and a group studio for sculpture majors. A media suite with video imaging equipment, an experimental gallery/installation area, a three- dimensional design room, and a wood/pattern shop are planned. Other features will include a foundry/metal-working area with an overhead rail system and an outdoor work pad for assembling and loading large-scale artwork and material. The Boor Sculpture Studio will relocate facilities now housed in a leased building, two miles away on Railroad Avenue in Albany, to the main campus, a brief walk from the Fine Arts building. Boor, who says she is elated that the studio will carry her name, hopes that it will "give people the incentive to do even greater work."
		Nolan Altman Martha Bealler Altman was a vocational high school teacher in a gritty inner-city neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she formed a local chapter of Future Business Leaders of America for her students. She led them on field trips to corporations in Manhattan to demonstrate to her disadvantaged students what they might achieve if they worked hard for their dreams. “Several of her students became the first one in their families to go to college, and she really helped those kids go further in life than they would have gone otherwise,” said her son, Nolan Altman, B.S.’77, who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University. It was also at the University where he met his wife, Susan, B.S.’77, who was also a business major. When his mother died in 1995, Altman decided a good way to honor her memory and career as an educator and to support his alma mater was to establish the Martha Bealler Altman Scholarship Fund. With a $30,000 initial gift, the fund provides a $1,500 scholarship for a University undergraduate student each year. The scholarship is awarded on the basis of academic standing and financial need. This year’s recipient is Lindsay Booth, a junior business major from Washingtonville, Orange County. “It was exciting to be chosen and it really helped me out a lot, since I’m using financial aid, loans and a work-study job to pay for college,” said Booth, who has a 3.64 cumulative G.P.A .and plans to look for a job in business after graduation. Altman’s family liked the idea of the scholarship fund so much that he gave an additional $30,000 gift in memory of his father, Murray Altman, who died in 2000. “My father was a TV repairman, and he was thrilled by what I’d done for my mother at the University,” Altman said. This time, Altman earmarked the money for the Judaic Studies Department, because his father’s side of the family lost some members during the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust. The fund he established in memory of Morris Altman is being used to help fund undergraduate research projects within the Judaic Studies Department.
		Morris “Marty” Silverman For years before he passed away in January 2006, philanthropist Morris “Marty” Silverman was a partner with the University at Albany. Through the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation, named for himself and his late wife, the Troy, N.Y., native made a $1 million gift to support the University at Albany’s Life Sciences Research Initiative, a major effort to advance scientific understanding of the molecular mysteries of life and disease. Through the initiative, UAlbany is investing more than $100 million in public and private funds to expand its research facilities and attract world-class researchers. The University is seeking $20 million of this investment from private philanthropy; Silverman’s gift brought to almost $3.5 million the total committed thus far. The son of an immigrant tailor, Silverman worked his way through Albany Law School, graduating in 1936 and accepting a position with the Legal Aid Society. Three years later, he departed the Capital Region for New York City. After entering the U.S. Army during World War II; earning two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, and numerous other commendations; and rising to the rank of major, he returned home. He started two businesses: One of them, National Equipment Rental, grew to become the largest privately held leasing firm in the United States. The Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy posthumously honored Silverman with a 2006 Distinguished Public Service Award last March.
		George E. Martin (left), A.B.’54, M.A.’55, spent his career at UAlbany teaching mathematics. His colleague, the late Kendall Birr (right), taught history. But the faculty members worked for decades on behalf of the University Libraries, and they recently established endowments for the Libraries. “I couldn’t have written my first book without interlibrary loan service,” said Martin, whose five books are all still in print and in use by scholars and students. His sixth and latest book, Counting: The Art of Enumerative Combinatorics, came out shortly after his retirement several years ago – inspired, Martin said, by his own experiences in the classroom, teaching upper-level geometry courses. Martin also supports other University initiatives. Gift annuities, he says, are “a great investment, and a win-win for everyone.” As an alumnus as well as a professor emeritus, Martin points out that, “most of us are not able to give large amounts of money, but many of us can give smaller amounts that will add up to support UAlbany. I urge others to do exactly that.” Like most historians, Birr was a longtime user of libraries and often relied on UAlbany’s Libraries for his research, as well. In the 1980s, he discovered that some works he needed were simply not a part of the Libraries’ acquisitions budget. With that in mind, Birr established the History of American Science and Technology Fund in 2000 “to enable the Library to routinely buy 10 to 15 volumes published each year in that field.” It was his way of “assuring that Library collections would be maintained.” He also supported a scholarship in the Department of History through an endowment. Birr, who died in December 2004 at age 80, began teaching at UAlbany in 1952 and retired in 1990. During his 38-years with the University, he built an impressive record of teaching, research and service. He was named a Collins Fellow in 1985 and honored in 1993 with UAlbany’s Citizen of the University Award.
		Carla Rizzo Delray, B.A.'42, was a woman ahead of her time. She recognized at a very early age that being a "generalist" - a word she defined as "someone who knows how to do more than one job" - would give her an edge in the job market. During her years at the New York State College for Teachers, Delray was something of a Renaissance woman, majoring in French, Spanish and mathematics and minoring in history. She credited her education with preparing her for successive careers in the securities industry, financial analysis and artificial intelligence. For Delray, the College for Teachers represented "a great opportunity" to study and lay the foundation for professional success. After her graduation, however, she never really left the College, which later became the University at Albany. She chose instead to maintain an affiliation by corresponding with former professors and friends from her undergraduate days, and by cultivating new friendships with other University supporters. In the decades before her death in January 2000, Delray proudly watched as her alma mater "evolved and reached out to the community." To help keep that evolution going - and to repay what she saw as a debt to the University - the General Electric Research & Development Center retiree decided to invest in the future by leaving the major portion of her estate to UAlbany to support scientific research. Her bequest, valued at $1 million, is the first major gift to the fundraising effort for the Life Sciences Research Initiative. Delray, who lived in suburban Albany, once observed: "I believe in the life of the mind; that's where everything starts. My life would not have been as fulfilling without my connection to Albany, and I never would have been able to afford elsewhere the education I received there. I'm very proud to be an Albany graduate!