MOUNT VERNON — Richard and Norma Small of Tulsa, Okla., have established a charitable lead trust that will pay Cornell College $12 million over the next 15 years. The funds will go into the endowment, the Cornell Annual Fund and capital projects.
“This gift is the latest example of leadership Richard and Norma have given to Cornell,” Cornell President Les Garner said. “The gift supports our aspirations to be one of the nation’s outstanding liberal arts colleges.”
Richard Small is a 1950 Cornell College graduate, past chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees and recipient of an honorary doctor of humanities degree from Cornell last fall. He and his wife, Norma, an honorary alumna, are Cornell’s most generous donors. Their philanthropy to Cornell includes a $20 million challenge gift to the Program for Cornell campaign in the 1980s. Other large gifts were given to build the Richard and Norma Small Multi-Sports Center (1985) and to renovate College Hall (1980), South Hall (1982), Law Hall (1997) and residence halls including Bowman-Carter (1991-95) and Merner (1999).
The Smalls have funded the annual Small-Thomas Lecture Series (“Dreams of Peace: Visions of the Future”), the Small Conference Room in Russell Cole Library (1995) and endowed the Richard and Norma Small Senior Faculty Chair (1996), Cornell’s first fully endowed faculty chair.
In 2000 Richard Small received the Stanley S. Kresge Award, presented annually to an active volunteer in a United Methodist-related institution by the United Methodist Foundation for Christian Higher Education.