TWU
Home > Marketing
& Communication > News
Releases
T. Boone Pickens gives $5 million to Texas Woman’s University
11/7/06
 DALLAS — A $5 million gift from T. Boone Pickens to Texas
Woman’s University will help fund construction of TWU’s new $32-million T.
Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences-Dallas Center. Mr. Pickens’
donation is the largest single gift from an individual to TWU.
“A key objective of my philanthropy is advancing health and medical research
and care. I’ve done that through gifts to UT Southwestern, Texas Scottish
Rite Hospital for Children, the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins and
M.D. Anderson in Houston, among others,” Mr. Pickens said. “To achieve
quality health care, a skilled nursing community is vital, and I am
impressed with what TWU is doing in this field. They have the vision and
the background to ensure nursing care in Texas — and nationally — takes a
significant step forward for the benefit of current and future generations.”
TWU is in the middle of a $32 million fundraising campaign to build the new
Pickens Health Sciences Center, which will combine TWU’s current education
sites near Parkland and Presbyterian hospitals. The state-of-the-art
facility will be built at the TWU Parkland location in the heart of Dallas’
renowned Southwestern Medical District.
TWU will offer programs in nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy,
healthcare administration and library science at the new T. Boone Pickens
Health Sciences-Dallas Center. The TWU Stroke Center also will be housed in
the facility.
“When you combine TWU’s eight consecutive semesters of enrollment growth
with the national shortage of healthcare providers, the reason for the new
Pickens Health Sciences Center becomes clear,” said TWU Chancellor and
President Dr. Ann Stuart. “Mr. Pickens’ generous gift lays the foundation
for a building that will allow TWU to continue graduating quality healthcare
professionals for years to come.”
Mr. Pickens founded Mesa Petroleum Co. in 1956, which he grew into one of
the nation’s largest independent oil and gas firms in his four decades of
leadership. He left the company in 1996 and founded BP Capital, one of the
nation’s most successful energy investment firms that has consistently
ranked as one of the most successful hedge funds in the U.S. His recently
updated 1987 autobiography, Boone, was listed for 15 weeks on The New York
Times best-seller list.
Throughout his professional life, Mr. Pickens has been a generous
philanthropist. Mr. Pickens’ 2005 giving — nearly $220 million in all —
earned him the fifth spot on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of top
U.S. philanthropists. In recent years he has given more than $250 million to
Oklahoma State University; $10 million to the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Library to underwrite the Air Force One Pavilion; $6 million to the American
Red Cross for hurricane disaster relief operations; and $3 million to the
Oklahoma Heritage Association.
He has also made million-dollar-plus contributions to a wide range of
medical research institutions and treatment centers, including the Wilmer
Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Scottish
Rite Children’s Hospital and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
“I’m convinced the Lord put me in this life to make money, and be generous
with it,” Mr. Pickens has said.
So far TWU has raised almost $16 million for its new Institute of Health
Sciences-Dallas Center thanks to the generous donations of Mr. Pickens and
others, including: The Simmons Family Foundation, The Pollock Foundation,
Mr. and Mrs. Jere W. Thompson, Mrs. Orien Woolf, Ann Stuart, the Abe Zale
Foundation, the Robson Communities, Baylor Health Care System, the Gaston
Episcopal Hospital Foundation, W.P. & Bulah Luse Foundation, The Eugene
Straus Charitable Trust, the Thompson & Knight Foundation and Sheila and
Gary Marlow.
The new TWU T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences-Dallas Center
project will create a 143,000-square-foot, multi-building campus that will
include renovation of the existing education building and construction of a
new 50,000-square-foot education building and a 600-car garage. This will
add approximately 17,000 square feet of expanded program space and allow for
future growth. The Center will be built in two phases so classes will not
be interrupted.
Groundbreaking is planned for 2008, and the complex is scheduled to open in
2010.
TWU’s presence in Dallas began in 1954 through an agreement with Parkland
Memorial Hospital that called for TWU nursing students to obtain their
clinical training at Parkland. This model prevailed until 1966, when a $2
million, two-story educational building and a seven-story dormitory for
nursing students opened at Parkland. TWU students began training at
Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas in 1974, and the university opened its
Dallas-Presbyterian campus in 1977.
In 1992, TWU established The Stroke Center-Dallas at the Parkland campus,
which provides cutting-edge treatment and training in neurological
rehabilitation for stroke patients.
For more information on TWU’s new T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health
Sciences-Dallas Center, visit www.twu.edu/dallascampus.
###
For Further
Information Contact:
Amanda McKeen Simpson
Director of News and Information
Tel: (940) 898-3456
e-mail: asimpson1@twu.edu |
