Goodwins pledge $13.3 M to Darden

Board of Visitors member William H. Goodwin Jr., president of CCA Industries of Richmond, and his wife, Alice T. Goodwin, have pledged a $13.3 million unrestricted gift to the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, the largest single gift in the institution's 45-year history.

Combined with earlier anonymous gifts, the Goodwins' financial support to Darden exceeds $25 million, making them the school's largest donors and among the most generous contributors to the University.

As chair of the school's trustees in the early 1990s, Goodwin urged the school to abandon plans for a modest renovation of its old building and launched planning and construction of the Darden Grounds. His funding plan for the expansion was the first modern example of a Virginia public university financing new facilities entirely through private sources, allowing for greater design creativity and efficiency without adding to the tax burden of state residents. This approach has since been adopted by other institutions across the commonwealth and will be repeated by Darden when construction of Phase II begins this summer.