Luskins $25M donation goes toward UCLA history department engagement, retention
Bunche Hall, which houses offices from the UCLA Department of History, is pictured. History department members recently shared thoughts on the spending of a new $25 million donation.(Daily Bruin file photo)
By Patrick Woodham
Oct. 6, 2024 8:57 p.m.
This post was updated Oct. 7 at 12:20 a.m.
Meyer and Renee Luskin donated $25 million to the UCLA Department of History to help fund graduate programs and community engagement.
This gift will go toward history department faculty retention, fellowship funding and community contact, said department chair Kevin Terraciano. The money will also be spent on undergraduate projects such as the Public History Initiative, a program for undergraduate history students to earn credit working with community partners, including museums, schools and other nonprofit organizations, he added.
The Luskins previously donated $100 million for the establishment of the Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center.
Terraciano said the Luskins’ donations to the department will help them create a deeper connection to the people of Los Angeles and allow them to dedicate more time and money to community partners in downtown Los Angeles.
“To move out of Westwood, to move into the heart of LA and to do some of these programs and activities is really important to us,” he said. “This is another step in the direction of public history and community engagement that we believe very much in.”
This donation took about three months of preparation, Terraciano said. The Luskins met with him, distinguished professor of history David Myers, and Dean of Social Sciences Abel Valenzuela Jr. prior to the donation to discuss its allocation within the department, he added.
“Once it’s clear that the donor wants to make a donation, the development office will work with the donor to make it happen,” Terraciano said. “In this case, David Myers and I met with Meyer and Renee to talk about what they wanted before they went to speak with the development office so that we could get a sense of what they wanted and how we could honor that interest.”
Myers said donations like this benefit the department because state funding has decreased, especially as there is a public perception that STEM degrees have a higher return on investment than the humanities.
“The spirit of the donation is a real belief in the value of history in a democratic society and the power of history, and we share that conviction,” Terraciano said. “Especially now when history is to some extent under attack in this country, especially by the far right who make all sorts of claims to history that are controversial and that are not based on evidence.”
Only 25% of the history department’s graduate fellowship support comes from the State of California, with the rest coming from private donations, he said.
“The rest is endowments that we’ve received over the years for graduate support, specifically,” Terraciano said. “Without those endowments, without those gifts, our graduate program would be much smaller than it is and not as strong as it is.”
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the department said that most of its annual operating costs are covered by general funds, summer sessions revenue and the chair’s discretionary fund, which consists of private gifts received by the department.
In 2022-2023, UCLA received $692 million in donations, with 94% being less than $10,000, according to UCLA’s annual report of private support.
When asked about what the donation means to the department, Myers said it helps make his and his colleagues’ work feel validated.
“It (the donation) provides an important source of validation to the work of university and history at a time when institutions of higher education are under attack from all sorts of corners,” he said. “So I think that’s just a morale boost and validation.”