Gift of a Book Was a Key to Intel Founder's Big Donation to City College of N.Y.

A simple transaction â€" the gift of a book â€" was a turning point in securing City College of New York's largest donation.

Andrew S. Grove, cofounder of the Intel Corporation and a City College alumnus, proved to be a difficult prospect for Gregory H. Williams, the college's president. Since 2001, when he took office, Mr. Williams had tried unsuccessfully to meet with Mr. Grove for about a year.

"Most people had been asking me what kind of support I had gotten from our two most famous alumni, Colin Powell and Andy Grove," the president says. "Mr. Powell was involved in our campaign, but I still needed to know what Mr. Grove was doing. When I finally met him in his office in California, he turned me down flat."

Although Mr. Grove had given the institution smaller donations in the past, including a $1-million challenge gift, Mr. Williams was discouraged.

He went back to New York, where his wife, Sara, had done some donor research of her own by reading Mr. Grove's autobiography, Swimming Across: A Memoir (2001), in which he recounts surviving the Holocaust and fleeing Hungary during the Communist takeover.

Mr. Williams had written a book, Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black (1995), his account of being raised in a rough neighborhood in Muncie, Ind., the son of a middle-class family that eventually disintegrated after his father revealed his African-American roots.

The City College leader sent the business executive a copy of that book and believes that it opened the door to another meeting.

"My wife encouraged me not to give up, because she believed the two of us were a lot alike," Mr. Williams says. "I went to see him a second time and told him I wanted to name the school of engineering in his honor. But it was still a strong 'no.'"

Mr. Grove says his hesitancy to make a large donation stemmed from his wanting to be sure that the institution was heading in the right direction, with the right leadership. Reading Mr. Williams's book gave him an indication that the president appreciated City College's tradition of serving children from working-class and immigrant families.

Mr. Grove was still not ready to make the big donation the college was looking for, but he was coming around.

"To me City College represents the opportunity given to me to break out of very poor immigrant status," he says. "I think that the college went through a rough patch during the open-admissions era and lost its edge. Now it is on its way to recovery." (City College ended its open-admissions policy in the late 1990s).

Last summer Mr. Grove was the subject of a Fortune magazine photo shoot. Given the chance to choose where he wanted to be photographed, he chose City College.

While he was waiting for the photographer, he met a student who had won top prize in this year's Intel Science Talent Search. With the $100,000 award, the student had chosen to attend City College.

"So all of this came together," Mr. Grove says. "And I decided it was time to step up to a different level of support."

In November Mr. Williams announced Mr. Grove's $26-million donation, which will go toward laboratories, equipment, and financial aid for students. The engineering school will henceforth be known as the Grove School of Engineering.

"Andy Grove is the father of the digital revolution," Mr. Williams says. His gift is "a tremendous vote of confidence, and it allows others who have been reluctant to give to go forward now with their own donations."

PHOTO (COLOR): Andrew S. Grove says he decided to give $26-million to City College of New York because the institution was "on its way to recovery."

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By Erin Strout