Estate gifts to fund many areas at UW-Madison

A major benefactor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison during her lifetime, the late Ethel K. Allen has funded multiple initiatives on campus in perpetuity.

Allen, known to her many friends as “Toddy,” died at age 98 on May 7. Provisions in her estate distribute more than $16.5 million to various campus units for which she held affection.

The Allen estate allocates gifts to many UW–Madison programs, including six within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS), as well as the Chazen Museum of Art, the College of Engineering and the University League.

Thanks to the estate, a chair will be established in the CALS Department of Plant Pathology with an endowment of more than $4.9 million. In addition, an O.N. Allen Professorship in soil sciences will have a $2.47 million endowment.

The biology library in the College of Letters and Science will receive more than $825,000 for book purchases. The Chazen Museum will see two identical gifts of more than $412,000 — one to purchase art, the other to buy books.

Students will be big beneficiaries of Allen’s philanthropy. The Ethel K. Allen Nursing Scholarship will be endowed in the School of Nursing thanks to an apportionment greater than $825,000. The CALS dean’s office receives a like amount for internship grants.

Her home departments of botany and microbiology will receive more than $412,000 each for graduate student grants in aid. The CALS dean’s office will see the same amount for its Daughters of Demeter Education Fund, which awards merit scholarships. A similar amount will benefit the University League through an endowment fund for undergraduate scholarships.

The Steenbock Library in CALS will receive more than $825,000 for an unrestricted endowment.

The dean’s office in the College of Engineering will receive more than $825,000 for an endowment to fund student research aimed at the creation of devices to aid people with physical disabilities.

Allen received two UW–Madison degrees: a 1928 bachelor’s degree in botany and a 1930 master’s degree in bacteriology. She also received an honorary doctorate from the university and was a faculty member for many years. She married eminent UW–Madison bacteriologist Oscar N. Allen, and together they co-authored the de facto “encyclopedia” on the role of legumes in nitrogen fixation: “The Leguminosae, a Source Book of Characteristics, Uses, and Nodulation.”

Allen was a renowned naturalist and international authority in her field. While she was alive she supported many efforts on campus, and a substantial gift in the 1980s was instrumental in the creation of the Allen Centennial Gardens, which bear her and Oscar’s name, an honor bestowed in 1989. Oscar Allen died in 1976.

The gardens will receive more than $825,000 for an endowment to fund upkeep.

“She was a very private person,” says John Feldt, retired vice president for finance at the UW Foundation and Allen’s next-door neighbor for many years. “She lived in the same modest house for decades, and she didn’t want people to know she had money.

“If she found an area on campus she believed in, she directed her giving to it,” Feldt adds. “She had an extra lot by her house, and she was an exceptional gardener who used many perennials, so of course she loved Allen Centennial Gardens. She was so happy to make the gift to really get that going.”