FACILITIES & CAMPUS LIFE

A Gift of Prestige

When the University of Vermont launched the public phase of The Campaign for the University of Vermont in the fall of 2003, the air of excitement surrounding the occasion was magnified by the news of another milestone in the life of the University — a $15 million gift from Stephen '61 and Beverly Rubenstein and their family that is the largest individual gift in UVM history.

The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources thus became the first-ever named academic unit at the University of Vermont and one of only a handful of named environment and natural resource programs in the country and even the world. "This gift will propel our school even further in the national spotlight of environmental and natural resource programs," Dean Donald DeHayes said at the time, and so indeed it has.

DeHayes says the Rubenstein gift has had an "extraordinary impact" in elevating the visibility of the school and its reputation throughout academia. "The context of a named school sends a strong message about quality and prestige," he says, citing the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC-Santa Barbara, and the Warner College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University as academic entities that carry a similar caché.

Both enrollment and fundraising for the school have benefited as well, with enrollment in the Rubenstein School on a steady upward trajectory, the SAT and GRE profiles of entering undergraduate and graduate students among the highest at the University, and research funding and private giving at record levels. "It really matters when you're a named school," says DeHayes. "There are other factors at play too, of course, but the Rubenstein gift was a catalyst for all of these positives in the past several years."
When the income from the Rubenstein gift is fully realized, it will be used to benefit both students and faculty. Twenty-five percent will be designated to support the study of the environment campus-wide and will be used as scholarships for UVM students in environmental majors, both in the Rubenstein School and in other UVM schools and colleges. "That's the equivalent of a $3.75 million endowment just to support scholarships for environmental students," DeHayes says. Faculty support from the gift will include opportunities for faculty to explore new areas of their teaching, research, and scholarship.

Stephen Rubenstein, who is president of Rubenstein Properties in New Jersey and a member of the Rubenstein School's Board of Advisors, says the gift from his family stems from their wish to help UVM further its environmental agenda. "I hope that through research and education, the University of Vermont can be a national leader in finding ways to remedy damage to the environment, and to develop future leaders who will stop such damage from happening in the first place," he has said.

In addition to their estate gift, the Rubensteins have also provided annual gifts to the school that enable enhancements such as student scholarships for faculty-led travel courses to study environmental research projects at various locations around the country and the world. Dozens of Rubenstein School students have had the opportunity to travel with faculty to sites including Florida, Texas, California, Costa Rica, Belize, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Scotland.

Prior to The Campaign for the University of Vermont, the Rubensteins made a $1 million gift naming the Stephen and Beverly Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory on the Burlington waterfront. Research conducted in the facility focuses on the impacts of human activities on physical, chemical and biological processes in the greater Lake Champlain Basin ecosystem.

The generosity of the Rubenstein family has not been lost on the students who benefit. DeHayes recalls a moment at Commencement in 2004 when Stephen Rubenstein rose to receive an honorary degree. "The graduating class from the Rubenstein School, which had been named just a few months before, without any prompting from me or anybody else, came to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. It brought tears to the eyes of everybody on the podium and said so much about what his philanthropy meant to the students."