Syracuse University to Receive Record Donation

The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation intends to pledge $75 million to Syracuse University’s S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. The gift will be the largest donation to the university in its 150-year history and one of the largest ever to a school of communications.

Donald E. Newhouse, a Syracuse alumnus and honorary trustee, made the announcement at an event at the Newhouse School on Jan. 13.

"In this era in which public communications is undergoing continual and radical change, my family and I expect to continue our long-term commitment to ensure that the school my dad helped found almost 60 years ago remains the leading communications school in the world for another generation," he said in a university press release.

The university said the gift "will support multiple academic initiatives" and boost a fundraising campaign launched in November.

The Newhouse School is named for Newhouse’s late father, Samuel I. Newhouse, who donated $15 million to the university in 1962 to help fund construction of the first of the school’s three buildings. That donation was the largest gift in its history at that time.