Matching campaign to fund scholarships for undergrads
Proceeds from the $125 million gift from William S. Dietrich II in 2011 now are being used to create a fund to match pledges for scholarships for undergraduate students in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
The gift — the largest in Pitt’s history — already has been used for the William S. Dietrich II Chair in Political Science and the William S. Dietrich II Endowment Fund for Graduate Support.
The new Dietrich Matching Campaign for Undergraduate Scholarship Endowments marks the first time the funds will be used in a one-to-one match for undergraduate student scholarships.
The first gift in the matching campaign, launched July 1, is from actor Richard E. Rauh, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Pitt.
Rauh is pledging $75,000 over a three-year period. Income generated from Rauh’s gift will be matched from The Dietrich Foundation Endowment Fund for William S. Dietrich II Undergraduate Scholarships.
Together, they will create the Dietrich-Rauh Endowed Scholarship, which will be available for undergraduate students majoring in theatre arts.
Said N. John Cooper, the Bettye J. and Ralph E. Bailey Dean of the Dietrich school: “Richard’s leadership gift is exceptionally generous and builds on his earlier gifts that add to the artistic strength of the Department of Theatre Arts by positioning future students to take advantage of the riches of the department.”
The matching campaign is running through Dec. 31, 2015.
Rauh, who has had an extensive career on stage and in film, is the son of Richard S. Rauh, who founded the Pittsburgh Playhouse in 1934, and Helen Wayne Rauh, who acted at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, 1935-73.
Richard E. Rauh has been acting locally since 1966, ran the Playhouse film series, 1979-94, and was a drama critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1995-2000.
At Pitt, he was among the group of students who, in 1962, helped launch Pitt’s student-run radio station, which then had the call letters WPGH.
He created the Richard E. Rauh Teaching Artist-in-Residence in the Department of Theatre Arts and donated his family’s papers — the Pittsburgh Playhouse Collection — to the Curtis Theatre Collection in the University Library System’s Special Collections Department.
Rauh also teaches film at Carnegie Mellon University and film and theatre at Point Park University.