By Joshua Burd
The Kislak Family Foundation has pledged more than $2 million in additional support to Monmouth University, continuing its nearly two decades of giving to the school in honor of the late industry icon Jay I. Kislak.
According to the organization, the $2.125 million gift includes $1 million to extend its support of a need-based Kislak Family Scholarship for undergraduates pursuing a business degree with a real estate concentration. Another $125,000 will continue to fund the Kislak Real Estate Institute’s Academic Challenge, an annual intercollegiate real estate competition, while $1 million will support the construction of a new 30,000-square-foot building on the university campus to house the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, related exhibition galleries and a modern 230-seat theater.
“We are immensely grateful for the Kislak Family Foundation’s generous pledge and continued confidence in our mission,” Monmouth University President Patrick F. Leahy said. “This gift will bolster our mission to deliver an exceptional education to students today, while also providing foundational support for the future of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music. The foundation’s support for both scholarship funding, and for preserving and sharing the diverse tapestry of American music, resonates deeply with our institutional values of excellence, access, and social mobility.”
The Kislak family’s philanthropic support and connection to Monmouth dates to 2006, when a transformational gift helped establish the Kislak Real Estate Institute as a center for teaching and research within the university’s Leon Hess Business School. That helped launch the first credit-bearing academic real estate program in New Jersey, which was one of 65 in the country at the time and is one of 100 such programs today.
Since then, the Kislak Family Foundation also provided inaugural support for the Kislak Family Scholarship and Academic Challenge and funding for a permanent endowed directorship for the Kislak Real Estate Institute, according to a news release. The foundation’s commitments honor the memory of the late Jay I. Kislak, an entrepreneur, real estate pioneer and philanthropist, who entered the family real estate business in 1945 and made it his life’s work.
The firm noted that, after moving to Miami in the early 1950s, Kislak established what would become one of the country’s largest privately held mortgage banks, originating and servicing loans nationwide for more than 40 years. Until his death in 2018 at age 96, Kislak served as chairman of the Kislak Organization, which today focuses on real estate investments and brokerage.
“The Kislak family business was founded in New Jersey in 1906, and I am proud of the Foundation’s continued support of Monmouth University and its impactful work,” said Jason Pucci, CEO of The Kislak Co. Inc. in Woodbridge. “Jay Kislak forged a living legacy by helping to develop students who will become the next generation of real estate professionals and it is exciting to be a part of preserving Bruce Springsteen’s important legacy and the history of American music.”
