Historic individual gift to TWU triples in value to $25 million

July 9, 2020—DENTON—What began five years ago as Texas Woman’s University’s largest gift in history from world-renowned psychologist and psychometrician Richard W. Woodcock, Ph.D., will more than triple — reaching nearly $25 million in three years. 

The initial $8.7 million gift rose in value to more than $16 million last year through additional yearly donations, royalties and interest earned on Woodcock’s widely used assessment tests. That amount will grow an additional $5.6 million over the next three years, because of Woodcock’s recent donation of his intellectual property rights to the TWU Foundation and the purchase of future royalties for revised editions of his tests by publishing company Riverside Insights. (With continuing donations, royalties and interest, the value of the gift will reach nearly $25 million.)

“Dr. Woodcock has been an extraordinary benefactor to Texas Woman’s, and his gift has allowed the university to make meaningful advancements in multidisciplinary research and in helping families in the community,” said TWU Chancellor Carine M. Feyten. “We appreciate his incredible generosity, and we are so proud he chose TWU to carry on the legacy of his groundbreaking psychological assessment work.”

Since its creation five years ago, TWU’s Woodcock Institute for the Advancement of Neurocognitive Research and Applied Practice has expanded important national interdisciplinary research and psychological assessments by awarding more than $600,000 in faculty research and doctoral student dissertation grants and hosting two biennial solutions-oriented national conferences.

The Institute’s work has encompassed a number of long-standing national challenges, all of which relate to its mission, including: advancing occupational therapy research and practice to address adult cognition and dementia; developing a national standard for assessing children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing; predicting academic deficits in children; studying the impact of maltreatment-related childhood experiences; assessing reading fluency in young adults with mild traumatic brain injury; identifying cognitive factors influencing attention deficit disorders in children; exploring strategic memory and advanced reasoning training in stroke survivors; researching social interactions in individuals with traumatic brain injury; and looking at the association between motor skills and elementary literacy development in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Page last updated 2:29 PM, July 9, 2020