Texas Tech Announces Largest-Ever Gift to Whitacre College of Engineering - Texas Tech University

Richard E. Davis left more than $30 million to Texas Tech's Whitacre College of Engineering in an estate gift, the largest in the college's history and a new university record for estate giving.

Davis was not an engineering graduate himself. He came up through the College of Arts and Sciences, but chose to direct his estate toward engineering to honor his family's deep roots at Tech, including his father, Lt. Gen. Waymond Austin Davis, a distinguished alumnus of the Whitacre College of Engineering. That kind of century-spanning family connection to a single university is rare anywhere, and it shows in a gift this size.

The money is earmarked for endowed chairs, professorships, and facility enhancements inside the college. For students and faculty on the engineering side of campus, that translates to better-funded research positions and upgraded spaces, the kind of infrastructure that helps Tech recruit and keep top faculty who might otherwise land in Austin or College Station.

Engineering programs often live or die by the quality of their faculty lines and labs, and endowed chairs give the college a more stable foundation than state funding alone can provide. No estate contribution in Texas Tech's entire history has topped this one.