Teacher's estate hands UW-Stevens Point $4.3M donation

STEVENS POINT, Wis. — A teacher's estate has given the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point the largest donation in its 125-year history.

University officials said Wednesday that Dorothea Harju's estate has donated $4.3 million to the university's School of Education.

The money will be used to create the Harju Center for Equity in Education. The center will address educational inequities by training more teachers to work in rural classrooms and serving underrepresented minority students in urban areas.

National Assessment of Educational Progress test results released Wednesday show Wisconsin has the widest achievement gap between black and white students in the country.

Harju was a UW-Stevens Point graduate. She taught in various Wisconsin schools and served as a reading specialist in the Port Edwards School District for 25 years. She died in 2017 at age 98.