USF to announce gift worth $34.5-million

[ChiTownBull]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1117348.cms

An Indian emigre has donated $ 18.5 million to put a modest American university on the international map, making him one of the largest known contributors from the Indian-American community for any single cause.

Tampa Bay cardiologist Kiran Patel's largesse is also the single biggest donation to the University of South Florida. The bonanza will eventually help USF raise $ 62.5 million with matching state grants and other contributions.

The money will go towards building the Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions, a school for researchers to study issues such as global hunger and international trade.

USF is hosting a one day meeting today (Thursday) with the, officials, faculty and scholars to discuss the donation.

"I'm excited and anxious...excited because it is a major committment...anxious because unlike a Kennedy Institute or Baker Institute we do not have a brand name and we have to work hard to establish our reputation," Patel told TNN in an interview over the phone as he drove to the USF campus for the meeting.

Patel, who was born in Zambia, studied medicine in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, where he met his future wife Pallavi, also a physician. The couple has built a $ 1 billion health care business in Florida and... have set new bench marks for philanthropy in the state.

Their previous contributions include $5 million for the Dr. Pallavi Patel School for the Performing Arts at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and $3 million for a new heart-research institute near University Community Hospital in Tampa.

Patel's $18.5-million donation to USF includes $10 million to build the center, $2.5 million to operate it and $6-million for an endowment.

"It's a Rockefeller-style gesture. It's bigger than big," the local St.Petersburg Times quoted a university official as saying.

Donations on a similar scale by Indian-Americans include $ 20 million given to MIT by Desh Deshpande and his wife Jaishree to establish the Deshpande Institute of Technological Innovation.

Patel, who has been appointed by Florida governor Jeb Bush to USF's Board of Trustees, has given frequently to the university before, often without being asked. "I don't have time for you to ask me for money," he tells USF officials.

This time, the officials say, he wanted to make a grand gesture, something that would put USF on the international map. His enthusiasm, the St.Petersbeg Times reported, has engendered a new verb on the campus -- "we need to Patel that," meaning something needs to be kicked into high gear.

Patel's contributions in India include, besides donations for natural disasters such as the Gujarat earthquake and the recent tsunami, a 800-student school in his ancestral village of Mota Fofalia near Baroda.

Patel said he is traveling to India this fall with the USF President and the Dean of the medical school to "get them to expand their horizons towards India."

[Guest S.  Bien]

let me know when check clears

i put this up there with ftu/ou/oc stadium deal

You need your head examined.  Kiran's worth about $200MM at a minimum and sits on the board of trustees.  He's actually given small chunks to athletics- for academic purposes I believe he donated for the facility.  This man is a gem for USF, and someone we should all cherish.  This donation puts USF officially in the top 50 of national research institutions.  It also gives us a Universal "Think Tank" research center for International Studies (and this is completely different from an Al-Arian "Think tank" because Patel is of Indian decent and is a peaceful man), which only about 10 Universities in the entire nation will possess something of this nature- Rice, UCLA, etc.  That's pretty **** good company.

The best part of this gift is it will help foster more opportunity and business contacts in the city and world.  Which will shed a very positive light on USF, and indirectly may lead to others getting involved with USF maybe some day with the athletic department.   Apparently there were some major Universities and major "Think Tanks" in the Northeast in NYC, and Boston vying for this money as well, and we won out.  A huge accomplishment for USF, and we all owe a huge amount of gratitude to the Patel family for being so generous and helping us out!

This is going to be a great University because of families like the Patel's certainly not because of steve mazza.

[ChiTownBull]

[Guest Racketeering in LA]

Smazza - maybe you should worry about clearing up your racketeering issues and not worry about someone else's checks clearing.