Seton Hill University (SHU) is currently involved in a legal dispute over the profits from sale of land in Texas.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune’s article, “Seton Hill seeks $5 million profit on oil wells,” the land was given as a gift to SHU in 1991. The purpose of the land was never intended for University use.
By Daniella Choynowski
Center Spread Editor
Rachel Prichard
Staff Writer
Seton Hill University (SHU) is currently involved in a legal dispute over the profits from sale of land in Texas.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune’s article, “Seton Hill seeks $5 million profit on oil wells,” the land was given as a gift to SHU in 1991. The purpose of the land was never intended for University use.
At the time the gift was given, SHU was expanding the fine arts department and was seeking donations. The Ganassi foundation pledged $1 million, the predicted profit at the time for the land sale. The lawsuit claims that 100 percent of the proceeds were to go to SHU.
Former professional racecar driver Chip Ganassi’s father, Floyd, created the Ganassi Foundation.
His daughter, Annette Ganassi, Pittsburgh car dealer and active in her father’s foundation at the time of the donation, is a graduate of the 1979 class of Seton Hill College.
In 1996, Ganassi helped found another grant-giving institution, known as The Birmingham Foundation. According to the Foundation’s official website, they are “dedicated to health-related and human services grant-making in the south neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” Floyd Ganassi retired from the chairman position in 2007 but remains on the Birmingham board of directors.
Several Pittsburgh-area foundations, including the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University (Chip Ganassi’s alma mater), and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center say that they too were promised a share of the land sale profits, which total near $5 million due to the presence of oil wells on the property. The institutions’ ties to the land and money are unclear.
SHU lawyers said that during a 2003 conversation with Floyd Ganassi, he said SHU has all rights to the money, and that if they wanted, they could “throw something at the other charities.”
SHU’s official statement on the suit, dated from Septembers said to “please note that oil is not a factor in this matter. Seton Hill did not receive oil revenues from the property given to the University by the Ganassi Foundation.”