A milestone anniversary for Irvine Unified School District was commemorated with a big gift from the Irvine Company and Donald Bren Foundation Tuesday night: A $4 million check to the district, boosting the company’s years-long support for a program that promotes art, music and science education for elementary school students in the city.

The contribution was presented during Irvine Unified’s annual State of the District event, which took place at Woodbridge High School’s new performing arts center.

District Superintendent Terry Walker said the money was like an “exciting 50-year-anniversary birthday present.”

With this year marking a half-century of IUSD, Walker’s remarks during Tuesday’s event centered on a theme of “50 years of continuous improvement.”

The $4 million donation presented to the district represents a boost in an annual contribution the Irvine Co. has been committed to since 2006.

The Irvine Co. and Donald Bren Foundation in 2006 created the Excellence in Education and Enrichment Fund, initially committing $20 million over 10 years to the school district. The program it supports allows IUSD to employ specialized teachers who provide lessons to kids in fourth through sixth grade on music, science and art. The contributions come in $2 million installments each year.

In 2016, the company extended the fund another decade.

“Education has always been at the core of our planning principles in Irvine,” Irvine Co. Senior Vice President Jeff Davis said in a statement, adding that the money gifted Tuesday “deepens our company’s decades-long partnership with IUSD, students and families to support enrichment programs in science, art and music.”

The district’s partnership with the Irvine Co. has been “critical in addressing areas of support and areas of enhancement that otherwise wouldn’t have it,” Walker said.

Because of Irvine’s – and Orange County’s – high cost of living, “it makes it really challenging to have such a limited budget,” he said, “when we’ve got so much to do and in an environment where it’s expensive to have people and retain people to come and work in the school system.”

Any extra contributions are carefully put to use to maximize their benefit, Walker added.

The Excellence in Education and Enrichment Fund helps the district provide extra weekly lessons in science and music and several additional art classes per year for upper-elementary school students. Since its creation, more than 150,000 students have attended the classes, which help set a “foundational” base for students as they enter high school, Walker said.

Considered one of the highest-performing school districts in the region, Irvine Unified enrolls more than 36,000 students students in its 43 schools (including two virtual academies).

Last year, IUSD students on average scored higher than the state mean on art and science Advanced Placement exams and the California Science Test, according to the school district’s annual report. They outperformed the average scores across California and globally on several AP exams, including Art History, Music Theory, Biology and Physics.

“This fund has been a cornerstone of our instructional profile,” Walker said. “For sure, it’s going to leave a lasting impact on the lives of current and former students.”

A message from Irvine Unified School District Superintendent Terry Walker:

Achieving excellence requires focus, dedication and passion. At Irvine Unified School District, we see that every day – from our visionary Board of Education and district leadership team, to a blend of talented teachers and support staff, active parent volunteers, engaged students, passionate community leaders and dedicated partners like the Irvine Company.

In 2006, Donald Bren and the Irvine Company pledged $45 million over 20 years – with $2 million donated in 2022 – to fund the Excellence in Education Enrichment Fund, a program that provides specialized instruction in art, music and science to the district’s students in grades 4-6. This incredible commitment has helped provide more than 100,000 students with enrichment classes usually only available to middle and high school students.

As our district celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, we reflect on how the strength of our public education system remains at the core of what makes the city of Irvine a special place. Dedicated community partners like the Irvine Company help us maintain these programs and bridge a significant gap in funding for enrichment classes.

Without a doubt – and by every measure – IUSD achieves excellence. IUSD students outperform their peers in California and the nation in science and visual and performing arts. Beyond this incredible achievement in the classroom, IUSD students move forward with the knowledge, skills and confidence to pursue their dreams.

In honor of our golden anniversary, please join me in celebrating our community’s continued commitment to its students. And to the budding musicians, artists and scientists embracing the lessons they are learning today in hopes of pursuing their future dreams, we say “Bravo!”

Terry Walker
Superintendent
Irvine Unified School District

Irvine Co. Chairman Gives $20 Million to New Law School

By Don J. DeBenedictis
Los Angeles Daily Journal
August 14, 2007

The first University of California law school in 40 years will be born with deep pockets.
Irvine Co. chairman Donald Bren is giving $20 million to UCI’s nascent law school, which will be named in his honor, the school announced Monday.

Nearly all the money will go toward hiring a nationally recognized dean and endowing 11 distinguished professorships, according to UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake. The money means the new Donald Bren School of Law will be able to open its doors to students in 2009 with a dozen nationally prominent scholars on the faculty, who should allow the school to attract even more.

“We’re doing our best to find ‘anchor tenants,’” Drake said.

The professors’ salaries will be paid for by the university directly, leaving Bren’s faculty endowment to fund research assistance and other benefits, the chancellor said.

That means UCI will be able to “bring some high-level laterals” in from other schools, according to John Eastman, the dean of Chapman University School of Law. The school will “make a good splash with that … and get their core faculty.”

Drake said the university had been in “conversation” with Bren for two years about his support for the law school, although the intended gift was kept anonymous until details were finalized.

But the certainty of substantial support was important in getting the school off the ground, according to the chancellor and to two prominent Orange County lawyers active behind the scenes, including Mark P. Robinson Jr. of Laguna Niguel. The University of California regents approved creation of the school in November despite objections from a state higher-education panel that argued the state has too many lawyers.

Another lawyer active in boosting the law school, Gary Singer of O’Melveny & Myers in Newport Beach, said local lawyers “are just so excited” by Bren’s gift and what it means for UCI. “We think it’s going to be a wonderful professional school.”

Eastman noted that the endowment frees the University of California campus from having to ask the legislature for money as soon or as often as it might have.

Bren was traveling Monday and could not be reached, according to an Irvine Co. spokesman.

Bren is considered one of the leading philanthropists in the country, and he has focused much of his giving on education in the city that bears his company name. UCI already is home to the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, the Bren Events Center and the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, which was renamed after Bren’s late stepmother, the Academy Award-winning actress.

Counting the 11 professorships and one deanship for the new law school, Bren has endowed 37 chairs at UCI and others at Caltech, Chapman University and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
He gave $20 million last year to the Irvine Unified School District, according to his Web site, and he has given $200 million to education overall.

The $20 million gift from the Donald Bren Foundation for the UCI law school appears to be the second-largest ever to a California law school and well within the top 10 donations to law schools nationally, according to communications and development officials at various schools.

The largest to a law school from an individual in a single year is Charles Munger’s $43.5 million gift in 2004 to Stanford to build a law school dormitory.

Munger is a Los Angeles investor who is chairman of the Daily Journal Corp., which owns the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals. Munger, who founded the Munger Tolles & Olson law firm, is a vice president of Warren Buffet’s investment company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Nevada lawyer and television-station owner James E. Rogers in 1998 pledged $115 million over 20 years to his law alma mater, the University of Arizona. He has added to his gift from time to time.

Rogers also gave $10 million to USC’s law school, where he got his master’s of laws degree, and $28.5 million to the University of Nevada law school.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $33.3 million in 2005 to the University of Washington School of Law to establish an 80-year scholarship program. The scholarship honors Bill Gates’ father, a Washington law alumnus and founder of Preston, Gates & Ellis, which now is Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis.

Bren, coincidentally, is an alumnus of the University of Washington, where he received a degree in business and economics.

UCI leaders are scheduled to meet this evening with law school boosters to discuss the Bren gift and the search for a new dean.

Drake said the list of dean candidates is down to about a half-dozen. He predicted an announcement in the next couple of months.

Buildings filling to the Bren at UC Irvine
Chairman of the Irvine Co. who has given the school about $43 million sees yet another site take his name

By Marisa O’Neil, Daily Pilot — June 3, 2004

UC IRVINE — A big donation and a passed bond initiative are giving the nationally ranked School of Information and Computer Science a new name: The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences.

University officials announced on Wednesday that the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences will break ground on a new building Wednesday and recognize its benefactor. Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co., donated $20 million to the school in December. Until Wednesday, it was an anonymous gift.

“Providing the gift in December allowed the school to begin recruiting [faculty] immediately, at an important juncture,” said Irvine Co. spokeswoman Jennifer Hieger. “[Bren] wanted the focus to remain on the school and its building momentum, knowing he would be recognized down the road.

“Bren’s $20 million tied the largest donation ever received by UCI. In 1999, Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli and his wife, Susan, donated the university’s other $20-million gift, to what is now known as the Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
Since 1984, Bren has donated about $43 million to the university, Hieger said.

He chose the School of Information and Computer Science, upgraded from a department to its own school in 2002, because of its accomplishments and vision, Hieger said.

“Though he has a background in real estate, he realizes that technological innovation is at the heart of economic health and vitality,” she said.

The donation will provide more than $18 million for 10 newly endowed faculty positions. Debra J. Richardson was officially named the school’s dean in March.

The school will be housed in a new, six-story building, to be named Bren Hall, and is scheduled for completion in 2006. About $35 million from school-improvement bonds Proposition 55 and Proposition 47 last November will go toward construction, UCI spokeswoman Michelle Williams said.

“It all came together, not quite simultaneously, but we had an amazing year — becoming a school, the bonds getting passed, getting the gift,” Richardson said. “This is really a transformational gift.

“Bren’s donation will allow the school, ranked 15th nationwide by U.S. News & World Report for computer science graduate programs, to attract senior faculty to the school, Richardson said. The school is planning to recruit faculty who will research “ubiquitous computing,” or small computers that are in everyday use for medical and other applications.

Other campus buildings with Bren’s mark are the Bren Events Center and the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, named for his late stepmother and Academy Award-winning actress.

*MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].