The University of Maryland Eastern Shore announced Friday that it received a historic donation of $38 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
The unrestricted gift gives the historically Black university wide latitude to decide how best to use the funds.
University President Heidi M. Anderson called the single largest gift in the university’s 135-year history ”nothing short of transformational.“
School officials said in statement Friday that the new funds should touch nearly every part of the university and many parts of its surrounding community.
For its nearly 3,000 students, the school plans to expand access to scholarships, strengthen mental health services and modernize its classrooms.
University Chancellor Jay A. Perman said in a statement that the gift will also enable the institution to boost its support for communities across the Eastern Shore. The donation will fund jobs and internships, as well as invest more in research in coastal innovation and agricultural development, according to Perman.
It’s the second time that Scott has made history donating to UMES.
In 2020, the ex-wife of Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos gave $20 million, which was the largest-ever gift at the time. On top of her other donations, Scott‘s total now stands at $101 million to historically Black colleges in Maryland this year.
Scott is a philanthropist and author whose 25-year marriage with Bezos ended in a divorce that gave Scott a 4% stake in the online retail giant. According to Forbes, her current net worth stands at a little above $33 billion.
In 2019, Scott pledged to give a majority of her wealth “back to the society that helped generate it.”
“To do it thoughtfully, to get started soon, and to keep at it until the safe is empty,” she wrote in a Medium post.
Much of Scott’s philanthropy goes to address social inequities. Her pledge, she wrote, is in part is guided by a “conviction that people who have experience with inequities are the ones best equipped to design solutions.”
Last month, Scott gave $70 million to the United Negro College Fund, the nation’s largest private scholarship fund for historically Black colleges.
And just last week, Morgan State University announced Scott provided the school’s largest single donation in its 158-year history, at $63 million. Earlier, in 2020, she donated $40 million to the historically Black university in Northeast Baltimore. Her total donations at Morgan State have exceeded $103 million over a five-year period.
Bowie State University also received its single largest gift — $25 million —from Scott in 2020.
This story has been updated to reflect Scott's total donations to Maryland HBCUs this year.
Banner reporter Ellie Wolfe contributed to this story.
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