Foundation Gives Record $400 Million to Stanford

Stanford University on Wednesday announced the receipt of a $400-million gift from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The donation, believed to be the largest ever made to an American university, will be used to help build Stanford’s endowment for the humanities and sciences and to fund undergraduate education.

The gift was made in the name of William R. Hewlett, a computer pioneer and Stanford graduate who died in January. He established his foundation in 1966, and was the creator of the Public Policy Institute of California and the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative.

“This gift is a tribute to my father,” foundation Chairman Walter B. Hewlett said. “It honors his lifetime of philanthropy, his lifelong devotion to Stanford and his passionate belief in the value of a liberal arts education. Had he lived, I am certain this is something he would have done himself.”

University officials say $300 million of the foundation’s gift will be used by the School of Humanities and Sciences--the largest and youngest of Stanford’s seven schools--for such things as endowed professorships and graduate fellowships.

The remaining $100 million will help provide undergraduate scholarships and independent research projects, officials said.

“This magnificent gift is very much in the tradition of Bill Hewlett--a strategic investment in the university he loved, addressing its most compelling and immediate needs,” Stanford President John Hennessy said. “As Bill himself did so often in his lifetime, it uses the power of philanthropy to encourage support from others. It is now part of Bill’s legacy at Stanford.”

Scott Jaschik, editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, said the gift was “the largest-ever donation to an individual college or university.”

The gift is topped only by Bill Gates’ $1-billion donation to set up a scholarship for minority students, he said.

“A gift like the one Stanford got today doesn’t happen every day,” Jaschik said. “There aren’t a lot of restrictions on how the university can use the money. Also, where many of the larger gifts are given to biomedicine or business schools, it’s particularly striking that such money has an emphasis on the humanities.”

William Hewlett graduated from Stanford in 1934 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. It was at the university that he met his lifelong friend and collaborator, David Packard, with whom he co-founded Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1936.

The two men also were partners in supporting their alma mater for more than half a century.

Before the gift announced Wednesday, university officials said, Hewlett, Packard and their family foundations had donated a total of nearly $400 million to the university.

“Bill Hewlett has supported hundreds of faculty members and thousands of undergraduate and graduate students in departments all over campus,” said Stanford provost John Etchemendy. “There is no one at Stanford who has not benefited from his legacy.”