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UT Receives $3 Million Gift

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By ADAM EMERSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 26, 2008

TAMPA - Frank Urso grew up in Ybor City - the "barrio" as he affectionately calls it - where his family worked in the cigar factories. He enrolled at the University of Tampa in 1953, thinking a college degree would open opportunities he saw so rarely in his neighborhood.

On Friday, the university announced that Urso, now a retired pathologist, has given his alma mater a $3 million gift.
Urso joins a small club of donors who have bestowed such generosity on the university, said Dan Gura, UT's vice president of development. Fewer than a dozen have donated more than $3 million to UT.

"A gift of this size is, for our university, a very significant gift," Gura said, noting that the university's Board of Trustees will decide how to spend it.
Urso paid part of his gift in December, and he plans to pay the rest during the next few years, Gura said. In turn, the university will honor its donor by renaming Kennedy Place, one of its newest residence halls, the Frank P. Urso, M.D. Hall.

Urso, who lives in Naples, couldn't be reached for comment Friday. He graduated from the university in 1957, and later graduated with honors from the University of Miami Medical School.

In 2005, he chronicled his life in the book, "A Stranger in the Barrio: Memoir of a Tampa Sicilian."

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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