Alan Berkshire, B.S. Arch ’82, and Cynthia Reavis Berkshire, A.B. ’83, are major supporters of Taubman College students and faculty research.
Alan and Cynthia Reavis Berkshire first donated to the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning in 1988. They were young professionals at the time, both equipped with a U-M degree.
In the ensuing years, the Berkshires’ continuing philanthropy to what would become Taubman College has benefited dozens, if not hundreds, of students, inspired myriad matching grants, and funded important research and educational programs. Today, the Berkshires are the college’s leading individual supporters of faculty research.
The Berkshires have donated to the college every year for the past 36 years even though neither works in architecture or urban planning. Cynthia earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and became a banker and business owner. Alan did earn a bachelor’s degree in architecture, although he decided to go another route by getting a law degree from Columbia University and becoming a corporate attorney and later an asset management executive.
The Berkshires give to Taubman College out of love for the university, confidence in the college’s leadership, and appreciation for the way the college prepares its students for success in whatever profession they pursue. The study of architecture hones the ability to solve problems at different levels while working with multiple constituents — a useful skill in many fields.
“If you’re an architect, you have to be able to focus in on a detail and solve that detail in a very specific and disciplined way, but you can’t lose sight of the whole project,” Alan says. “You also have to always be moving between keeping your eye on the whole project and its different components. Architecture requires you to work with so many constituencies and move between levels in solving problems continuously, and you have to be good at doing that, often without realizing it.”
Alan, who serves on the Taubman College Dean’s Advisory Board, adds that the Berkshires have been impressed with Dean Jonathan Massey’s leadership during his seven-year tenure.
“Watching Dean Massey lead the establishment of the Urban Technology undergraduate degree program — taking it from an idea to enrollment three years ago of the first group of students — has been particularly inspirational and has given me a huge amount of confidence in the college’s leadership and future,” Alan says.
Through the years, the Berkshires have been major supporters of Taubman College students. In 1997, while still in their 30s, they began building the Alan and Cynthia Reavis Berkshire Endowed Scholarship Fund. In three years they completed their pledge and the first Berkshire Scholar was named in 2001.
In 2006, in honor of Taubman College’s 100th birthday, the Berkshires established the Centennial Travel Fund to support student study travel. They also issued a challenge, offering to match new or increased gifts directed to graduate scholarships and to the Centennial Fund — up to $100,000. The impact was significant, as nearly 300 donors stepped up with new or increased gifts that were matched by the Berkshires.
Cynthia says the Berkshires have been inspired by Taubman College’s “dynamic deans” — including Massey and former Deans Monica Ponce de Leon and Douglas Kelbaugh — who “really captured our imagination in articulating some of the challenges faced by the college.” One such challenge was a lack of seed funding for faculty research. The Berkshires responded by supporting several innovative research programs.
“It was important to us to create these research opportunities that would require collaboration across disciplines and allow faculty to pursue interests and passions and then employ undergraduates in meaningful research, in real jobs around research, that ultimately worked on solving big issues,” Cynthia says.
Two projects from the Berkshires’ “Research through Planning” grant program illustrate the value and benefits of faculty seed grants.
Lesli Hoey, associate professor and director of doctoral studies in urban and regional planning at Taubman College, received a Research through Planning grant in 2017 to study the extent to which local governments engage in food systems planning. With the funding, Hoey was able to hire students to help her analyze master plans and sustainability plans around the United States to identify major gaps, which in part has fueled her continued work today on the role of food systems in achieving climate change goals.
Larissa Larsen, professor of urban and regional planning at Taubman, received a Research through Planning grant to study “green” infrastructure for stormwater management in urban areas such as Detroit and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The findings from the seed grant helped Larsen and her fellow researchers land a nearly $250,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, and they were able to take about 20 students to work on urban water projects in Addis Ababa for three summers.
Larsen was also part of a research team to receive a large grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that stemmed in part from her earlier work. When COVID hit in the spring of 2020 and many students couldn’t get summer work or lost prearranged jobs, the team was able to hire students to conduct an 18-month research project called “Racializing Detroit,” which looked at the importance of housing on both poverty and prosperity in Michigan’s biggest city.
“Seed grants help demonstrate a researcher’s ability,” Larsen says. “The preliminary accomplishments are more effective in communicating research promise to an external funding source like NSF than a 10-page proposal. Many grant proposals also require community engagement and a small grant is the perfect way to build a relationship and establish trust.”
