The Vukovich Center for Communication Arts is named in honor of Allegheny trustee Robert A. Vukovich '65, founder of Wellspring Pharmaceutical Corp. and InfaCare Pharmaceutical Corp., and his wife, Laura J. Vukovich. The Vukoviches gave $22.2 million to Allegheny in 2001, the largest gift in College history. A portion of that gift will be used to fund the center.
Read more about the Vukoviches in the article below, which was published in the summer 2001 issue of Allegheny Magazine.
The first thing you have to understand about Dr. Robert Vukovich '65—or Dr. V as he'll urge you to call him—is how adept he is at stepping out of the spotlight. Talk to him about the $22.2 million gift that he and his wife, Laura J. Vukovich, have made to the College—the largest in the institution's history—and you'll soon discover the conversation is taking subtle turns and he's led you away from talk of himself.
On the other hand, it can be hard to keep up when Dr. V starts talking about the things he's passionate about, like Allegheny College. Get him talking about his undergraduate days, and you'll find that not only has he stepped back into the past but he's taken you with him. In an instant he's re-peopled the campus with the characters with whom he interacted on a daily basis back in the 1960s—the inspirational, the generous, and the delightfully quirky—and you begin to understand what may have prompted what President Cook has called the Vukoviches' "stunning generosity."
The gift is perhaps equal parts tribute to the past and commitment to the future, a return for what Dr. V says were the many kindnesses shown to him during his own college years. "People gave me what they could give me back then," he says simply, "and I've always been deeply grateful for that."
As Dr. V explains, during his four years at the College he experienced Allegheny at a number of different levels. He was a student, he was a resident director—and so part of the administrative infrastructure—and he held a surprising number of part-time jobs. "We didn't have a whole helluva lot of money," Dr. V says of his family, who encouraged him to attend college. "But we had some very understanding people at Allegheny who helped me find the way to make up the gap in tuition between what my parents could afford and what I had to pay."
Student loans helped to bridge that gap, as did a number of campus jobs, including washing dishes for fifty-five cents—per meal, not per hour—after breakfast and lunch at South Hall and later at Brooks. (For washing dinner dishes, the compensation was an extravagant seventy-five cents.) Dr. V also delivered mail on campus, worked as a lab supervisor, cut Christmas trees in season, and ran a small kitchen-cleaning business. "I even joined ROTC," he says. "You got $27 a month for ROTC. That was a lot of money."
But his campus jobs held more rewards than just the monetary. Dr. V tells of the time that the formidable Shirley Townsend, director of food service at the time, caught him "foraging" for snacks in the walk-in freezer after his dishwashing shift. The usually severe Townsend, Dr. V recalls, took great delight in locking him in the freezer. "I spent a few panic-stricken minutes in there, and then she let me out," he says. "There she was, trying to look stern, hand on hip, leather shoe tapping. She took great glee in dressing me down." But, Dr. V adds with a smile, "she also let me take the food home."
Between his other jobs and his life as resident director for Caflisch, it's hard to imagine how Dr. V had time for his studies. "I certainly didn't have a lot of down time," he says in his understated way. But since he worked so hard to be able to pay the financial bills to stay in school, he wasn't about to squander the academic opportunities offered him. "Being a pre-med student, I was very committed to what I was doing," he says.
Of the faculty members he encountered at the College, Dr. V says, "I remember some with affection, some with continued amazement." He credits chemistry professor Herbert Rhinesmith with helping to set him on the path that led to medical school and later to his work in the pharmaceuticals industry. "He inspired me in chemistry," Dr. V says. "He presented it in such a way that it became exciting for us. He inspired me to enjoy science, as opposed just to studying science."
Dr. V also recalls his advisor, biology professor Edgar Curtis, whose office was in Alden Hall. "His office was dark," Dr. V remembers, "and packed to overflowing with scientific journals and stuffed owls and other animals. And he smoked Wing cigarettes incessantly. Students were petrified to go see him in this inner sanctum, filled with smoke. He was one tough cookie when it came to comparative anatomy."
Dr. V says he was drawn to Allegheny by the family atmosphere he felt here. "There was something about the people, the place, the social environment, that made people feel like they belonged," he says. "There was a family feeling. I felt like I belonged."
That's perhaps the second thing you need to understand about Dr. V: Family is extremely important to him, though he and his wife have broadened the definition of family considerably. Laura Vukovich, whom her husband describes as both his wife and his partner, was born to an Italian family in Brooklyn. "Laura is a great cook—a fantastic cook," he says. "We love having family and friends around." Dr. V notes that it's not unusual for his wife to cook for twenty-five or thirty-five people when their extended family of relatives and friends gets together.
Dr. V recalls that when he and his wife first discussed making a gift to Allegheny College, she had said, "If you're going to do it, do it right." "I had thought of being generous," he says, "but she was inspirational. She encouraged me to give back." He adds, with a laugh, "Laura is much more generous than I am. I wouldn't have done as much!"
