The Cornerstone Legacy Society: Leaving Your Mark with a Future Gift to UAF

Photo courtesy of UAF Rasmuson Library, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives.

To some students, Ernest Patty may seem a vague figure from the university’s past, recognizable mostly as the namesake of UAF’s sports center.

But not to Catherine Dunleavy, a UAF mining engineering major originally from Kotzebue.

Patty was one of six original faculty members when classes opened at the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in 1922. He later served as the University of Alaska’s president from 1953 to 1960. Upon his death in 1976, Patty left a gift to fund a scholarship in memory of his late wife. To date, the Kathryn S. Patty Scholarship has made 34 awards to students.

Dunleavy, who graduated from Mat-Su Central School in 2015, is one of those students.

“Thanks to this scholarship, I was able to afford to go to school this semester, and purchase the books I needed,” she said in 2021. “This allowed me to focus on school. It was very beneficial, and I am grateful. Thank you very much for offering this scholarship!”

Legacy gifts, such as the Patty Scholarship’s funding source, are contributions arranged in the present and bequeathed at a future date. Anyone with the sincere desire to help others can leave a legacy. Through planned giving, donations can create a lasting impact with endless possibilities. Many legacy gifts have supported students, inspired faculty, and fueled ingenuity at UAF.

For decades, scores of generous alumni, friends, faculty, and community members have had the forethought to include UAF in their estate plans. Planned gifts can come in many forms and support a variety of educational content. Donors can bequeath stocks, retirement accounts, real estate, and proceeds from other assets, such as a condo or home.

Faculty support

Legacy gifts stand behind several endowed faculty professorships and chair positions at UAF. In the late 1970s, the Harold T. Caven Professorship in Business and Finance was established in his memory. Caven was a longtime Alaskan who first came to the state in 1943. He served as a director and as a vice president of the First National Bank of Anchorage.

Endowed faculty positions like this professorship are crucial for recruiting and retaining faculty. Legacy institutions attract the best minds, the most creative researchers, and the most engaged teachers.

One professor can reach hundreds of lives through the courses they teach, their mentoring relationships with students, and their own academic work. These talented scholars attract and retain outstanding students.

The late James Pruitt ’73 showed how one person can have this kind of influence. Pruitt, who earned a bachelor's in business administration, had been giving to UAF and its alumni association since 1974. In 2013 he established the Green Island Scholarship to support students in the School of Management. In his estate, he included a $3.4 million gift to create an endowed chair at what is today the College of Business and Security Management.

A number of donors have notified the university of their plans to support faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Let the UAF Development Office know if that is something you are considering.

Unrestricted gifts answer the greatest needs

Unrestricted gifts provide flexible spending to address the university’s areas of greatest need. They can support people—students, faculty, and staff—or purchase items such as equipment, books, and even technology upgrades.

In 1975 the Fairbanks campus received its first unrestricted gift from the estate of Edby Davis, establishing the Edby Davis Memorial Endowment.

The late John R. and Mary G. Claus have established one of UAF’s longest records of unrestricted legacy donations. Since the early 2000s, their estate has given UAF annual generous support now totaling more than $400,000.

John Claus was born in Rochester, New York, and attended the University of Alaska in 1936. He was a longtime merchant, civic leader, and philanthropist in Fairbanks. John met Mary Gould in Fairbanks, and they were married for 56 years before she passed away in 1998.

The impact of the Claus’ unrestricted planned gift continues today through annual distributions of nearly $25,000. In recent years, this funding has been used to support the summer programming and research taken on by faculty and staff. The Claus' fund has also helped expand training and development opportunities for faculty, staff, and students.

Student support

Alumni have always had our back. UAF graduates are a growing segment of our donors.