MIT was a beneficiary of the Picower family, which this past week got the final order to return $7.2 billion (not a typo) they earned in Bernie Madoff’s upscale Ponzi scheme. In 2002, the now-defunct Picower Foundation gave the school $50 million to set up the Picower Center for Learning and Memory. No matter that MIT already had a neuroscience program named for a big donor. The school simply put them in the same building with separate entrances. Call it a neuroscience duplex.
Across town, you can’t turn a corner on Longwood Avenue without seeing the name of another major Madoff beneficiary – Carl Shapiro. In December Shapiro agree to pay $627 million into the Madoff fund, but not before he spread a lot money around at Boston hospitals.
At BMC, you can go to Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Ambulatory Care Center. At BIDMC, patients and doctors use The Carl J. Shapiro Simulation and Skills Center and the Carl J. Shapiro Clinical Center. At BWH, find the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Both Shapiro and the late Jeffry Picower claim they were victims, not beneficiaries of Madoff’s fraud. Apparently, the fund trustee did not agree.
Back at MIT, another major donor has been in the news.
The brand new building about to open up next door to the Stata center is the Koch Institute. David Koch is an MIT grad who started funding cancer research at MIT after a bout of prostate cancer. In addition to funding MIT, he’s a major donor to the conservative Tea Party movement.
Apparently Koch isn’t one of those who associates cancer and pollution. A UMass-Amherst study named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States.And, he won’t be spreading any of that cash toward MIT researchers who have produced reams of evidence in support of the notion of climate change.
Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Koch’s vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.
No worries about the liberal elite running things at MIT.
So, the practice of industry champions paying for graceful campus and hospital buildings has changed a bit over the years. BU sold naming rights to a high-rise dorm to an insurance company for $20 million. You can see the “John Hancock Student Village” from the Mass Pike. And, apparently, Red Sox money and bequests were not enough to fund the brand new Yawkey Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The center’s web page includes a link to information on “”https://www.dana-farber.org/abo/yawkey-center-for-cancer-care/naming-opportunities.html">naming opportunities."
Your gift to the Yawkey Center can be recognized by a naming opportunity, examples of which include:
• Gene on the Gene Display: $5,000
• Vitals Bay: $25,000
• Laboratory Services Bay: $25,000
• Reception Desk: $50,000
• Radiology Reading Room: $50,000
• Laboratory Services Suite: $100,000
• Private Laboratory Services Room: $100,000
• Exam Room: $150,000
• Private Infusion Room: $150,000
• Infusion Suite: $500,000
• Waiting Areas: $1 – $1.5 million
• Exam Services: $2 million
• Infusion Services: $2 million
• Disease Center: $5 million
• Central Laboratory Services: $7.5 million
• Dining Pavilion: $7.5 million
• Conference Center: $10 million