Robert I. Toll, head
of the nation's leading luxury home builder and a
longtime advocate of providing educational opportunities
to students in need, has made a major gift to expand the
Albert and Sylvia Toll Scholarship Fund at the Law
School.
The gift should triple the number of students who will
receive scholarships from the fund every year.
Currently, approximately five
students per year benefit from the scholarship. With Mr.
Toll's new gift, 15 students will receive annual financial
help from the fund, according to Ernest Gonsalves, associate
dean, Business Affairs. "I believe that anyone who wants
to go, and gets in, should not have to struggle to both pay
for and succeed at the Law School," said Mr. Toll, chairman
and CEO of Toll Brothers, Inc. in Huntingdon Valley, PA. "I
believe a scholarship should be provided for anyone and everyone
who has a need."
Mr. Toll, L '66, established
the scholarship fund in 1991 in honor of his parents and
his father's love of the law. His father, Albert, was
a well-known area developer with a history of philanthropy
who helped his sons, Robert and Bruce, start Toll Brothers.
Nearly 40 students have received scholarships from the fund
thus far.
"We are grateful to Robert
Toll for his generous contribution," said Dean Michael
A. Fitts. "More important, I'm sure the students
who will benefit from this newly enriched scholarship fund
are grateful as well, for they can now obtain first-class
legal training without incurring a heavier financial burden."
Mr. Toll and his wife, Jane,
have long been staunch supporters of education. In 1990 the
Tolls joined the Say Yes to Education program at GSE. Say
Yes to Education is an academic intervention program
that seeks to cultivate interest in higher education among
young and at-risk inner city students. The Tolls guaranteed
the cost of college or technical school tuition for 58 third
graders at the Harrity Elementary School in West Philadelphia--as
long as they graduated from high school. Thirty-two of the
children went to college.
A member of the School's
Board of Overseers, Mr. Toll also serves on the board of
directors of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the
American Red Cross, Cornell's Real Estate School, Seeds
of Peace, Abington Hospital, and Beth Shalom Synagogue. |