Gurley Brown gives Columbia, Stanford $30M

NEW YORK, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Longtime Cosmopolitan magazine editor and author Helen Gurley Brown has donated $30 million to Columbia and Stanford universities, it was announced Monday.

Columbia officials said in a release on the New York school's Web site Brown's gift will establish the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation and finance collaboration between Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford's School of Engineering.

Brown's late husband was a graduate of Stanford University and the Columbia School of Journalism.

Each school will receive $12 million with the remaining $6 million going toward construction of a "signature space" at the eastern end of the journalism school's building.

The journalism school will use its $12 million, the largest gift in its history, to endow a professorship who will serve the institute's East Coast director. Stanford will endow a position for the West Coast director.

"David and I have long supported and encouraged bright young people to follow their passions and to create original content," said Brown, who turns 90 Feb. 18. "Great content needs usable technology. Sharing a language is where the magic happens. It's time for two great American institutions on the East and West Coasts to build a bridge."