20 million reasons: but plan still rejected
In the world of multimillion dollar gift-giving, Paul Smith's College, named for a 19th-century hotelier and tucked in the forests of northern New York state, carried little cachet. So when Joan Weill, the wife of Wall Street billionaire Sanford I. Weill, proposed a $US20 million ($27 million) gift that would lift the struggling college's fortunes, its officials saw national prestige on the horizon.