William E. Macaulay, chairman and CEO of private equity firm First Reserve Corp., donated $30 million to his alma mater, City University of New York, and on Sept.25 the CUNY board voted to name the school's Honors College after him.
The gift — the largest donation in the history of the school — is earmarked to purchase a building on Manhattan's Upper West Side that will be the permanent site for the William E. Macaulay Honors College, confirmed Kristin Custar, assistant vice president of First Reserve, a New York-based private equity firm that just raised a $7.8 billion fund to invest in the energy industry.
"Education is important to him, and it is a school that could use the money," Ms. Custar said. Honors College students do not pay tuition.
The Steinhardt Building, the new home of the 5-year-old Honors College, was built in 1904. Michael Steinhardt, philanthropist and retired hedge fund manager — he is co-founder of Steinhardt Partners, a hedge fund firm, with William Salomon, former managing partner of Salomon Brothers, and Jack Nash, founder of Odyssey Partners — bought the building in 1999, restored it and donated it to the 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association in 2001.
