Bequests of Fine Art From Faculty and Alumni Are A Trend

Both future accountants and art majors studying at DePaul University will benefit from bequests made this fall by Ron Marcuson, a longtime faculty member at DePaul’s School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems.

Marcuson has earmarked $1 million dollars of his estate to endow a professorship for DePaul’s Master of Science in Taxation (MST) program and also pledged to donate a selection of modern art prints and objects from his private collection, including works by Picasso, Dali and Miró, to DePaul’s Art Museum.

Marcuson’s pledge is part of a trend among of DePaul faculty and alumni who are including fine art donations in their planned giving to DePaul. Thomas Brown, a professor emeritus who taught for more than 30 years at DePaul’s School of Music, left the university an impressive gift of Old Master prints, including works by Rembrandt and Hogarth, when he died last March. And Palo Alto sculptor Bill Iaculla, a DePaul alumnus, has announced his intention to leave the university works by Whistler, Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Käthe Kollwitz and Robert Rauschenberg from his collection, as well as a sizable selection of his own sculptures and photographs by his uncle, renowned photographer Paul Caponigro.

Marcuson, a retired Ernst and Young partner, has taught since 1984 in DePaul’s MST program, which is designed for accountants who want to specialize in taxation. He also spearheaded the school’s innovative online MST program. “Through this program, DePaul provides accounting professionals who don’t have access to face-to-face programs in the towns where they practice with the opportunity to obtain a high-quality MST education,” said Kevin Stevens, director of the School of Accountancy.

Both the online and in-person MST programs feature a faculty that blends distinguished academics with adjunct instructors who, like Marcuson, are experienced tax accounting professionals. It was this aspect of the program that led Marcuson to make his bequest to endow an MST professorship.

“What distinguishes DePaul is that most of our MST faculty has real-world experience in the area in which they are teaching,” he said. “That depth of experience is what makes DePaul — and the MST program in particular — so valuable. I want to help ensure that this practical experience continues to be available to students.”

Marcuson also said he is donating to DePaul because of its access-to-education mission. “DePaul offers opportunities to students who might not otherwise be able to pursue higher education — students, for example, who might be the first in their families to go to college,” he noted.

Providing art students a different kind of access – the opportunity to examine the works of renowned artists in DePaul’s own art collection – led Marcuson to include artwork in his estate plans for DePaul. “If I had given the pieces to, say, the Art Institute of Chicago, they would probably wind up in a storeroom. At the DePaul Art Museum, they will be used every day as teaching tools.”

This sentiment is shared by the other recent donors who have made art bequests to DePaul, according to Joel Schaffer, DePaul’s senior director for planned giving. “People give money and objects to people they feel will cherish it,” he said. “For faculty members who have worked their whole lives at DePaul, or alumni who see their college education as life-changing, the university is part of the family. They know their gifts will make a more significant difference in training art students and building a museum collection at DePaul than they would if they were given to a large, non-university art institution.”

Click for photo: Caption: Ron Marcuson (center), a retired Ernst & Young partner and longtime faculty member at DePaul’s School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems, was presented with a plaque to acknowledge his recent generous bequest to the school at a recent reception hosted by Ray Whittington (left), College of Commerce dean, and Kevin Stevens, School of Accountancy director.