Emory received $4.25 million from an Oxford College alumnus’ estate for Oxford College and the Candler School of Theology, the University announced yesterday.
The gift was part of Campaign Emory, the largest fund-raising effort in University history.

The two schools received the gift from the Charles Edwin Suber Foundation, established by the estate of Charles Edwin Suber (’42O), who died in November 2007.

The Theology School received $903,177 from the estate and will use the gift to fund the second phase of construction projects, to establish a new program to support students and to enhance the faculty, Dean of the Candler School of Theology Jan Love wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel.

“The unrestricted nature of the Suber gift means that we can use it to help leverage support from other donors for these three top priorities, and we look forward to the possibility of multiplying the impact of this particular generous donation,” Love wrote.

Love added that the gift will help support Candler’s vision of the Strategic Plan.

Oxford College received $3.35 million of the Suber gift, the largest cash gift in the College’s history.

Dean of Oxford College Stephen Bowen said that Oxford will use $100,000 to establish a scholarship in Suber’s name. The remainder of the gift will be used to fund the construction of a new science facility.

Bowen said that Oxford has raised about $20.5 million towards the new science facility and that the gift will help propel the College towards a $30 million goal.

“I think it’s going to help establish momentum that will let us complete funding,” Bowen said. “Benefactors know that if they make a large gift [now], the building will be built, whereas if you’re starting from scratch, they know it’s going to be a long time.”

The current science facility was built at Oxford when the enrollment was about 350 students in 1965. Now that Oxford has around 750 students, Bowen said the students’ needs have outgrown the building.

Additionally, every science class at Oxford has a lab component and the new building will provide Oxford with more collaborative spaces, different and newer equipment and larger lab areas, Bowen said.

“The current building is just not adequate,” Bowen said.

Bowen described Suber as a “quiet, unassuming man that just loved Oxford.”
“[Suber] would get his cousin to drive him out to the Oxford campus on the weekends so he could just walk around and talk to students,” Bowen said. “No one had any idea that he was planning to give us such a generous gift, but he did and it’s going to make a huge difference.”

— Contact Kate Borger.