College of Charleston receives record-setting $60 million dollar gift

Charleston Post and Courier
Diane Knich
October 3, 2008

The College of Charleston received a $60 million gift from businessman Guy E. Beatty Jr., the largest single donation ever given to a public South Carolina higher education institution.

The college will receive $2 million a year for 30 years from a trust Beatty set up in his estate, College of Charleston President George Benson said Thursday. Beatty, 75, has requested that $1 million per year be used for scholarships and $1 million for buildings and infrastructure.

Beatty did not attend the news conference at which the announcement was made. Benson said Beatty is “a low-profile individual, a private man” who wants to keep the focus on the college.

Benson, however, thanked Beatty in front of a standing-room-only crowd in Randolph Hall. “You’ll have the gratitude of many generations of students,” Benson said. “You’ve changed the College of Charleston forever.”

In a news release from the college, Beatty said, “… you will never appreciate your wealth until you learn how to give it away.”

Benson said that Beatty made the gift to the college because he is interested in young people and in education. “He started from nothing and built a real estate empire,” Benson said.

Beatty is chairman of Beatty Companies, a Virginia-based real estate development enterprise that he founded in 1962. He also helped launch more than 40 companies in the fields of real estate, music and entertainment.

Beatty and his wife Betty spend most of the year in Charleston but also have a home in Virginia.

Their daughter Susan Beatty graduated from the College of Charleston’s School of Business and Economics in 1985, and their grandson Brian Beatty in 2006.

Guy Beatty previously donated $2 million to the college for the Beatty Center, home of the School of Business and Economics. The building was completed in 2004. He also established the Guy Beatty Scholarship Fund, which gives $75,000 per year to about 12 School of Business and Economics students known as the “Beatty Bunch.” He’s a member of the school’s Board of Governors.

Benson said the college hasn’t decided specifically how it will use the money. The school is developing a strategic plan that will be completed in the summer. The money will be used to further the plan, Benson said.

He asked the faculty to be creative and entrepreneurial in developing the plan, he said, saying the college now will have more resources to work with, he said. That’s important because state support for public higher education is shrinking, he said.

Benson said Beatty’s gift is probably the largest he will see in his career. And he hopes it will be “a catalyst for a new era of private fundraising for the college.”

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