Students in Trinity's Mexico, the Americas, and Spain Program work on a project. The Alvarez family helped launch that program in 2005.
Students in Trinity’s Mexico, the Americas, and Spain Program work on a project. The Alvarez family helped launch that program in 2005. Credit: Courtesy Photo / Trinity University

San Antonio’s Trinity University has landed a $25 million gift — one of the largest in the liberal arts school’s history — to establish the Carlos Alvarez School of Arts and Humanities.

The grant from the Malú and Carlos Alvarez Family will endow the dean’s position for the new school, establish scholarships and fund undergraduate research, internships and global study, according to Trinity officials.

Trinity also will draw on the funds to create endowed professorships, offer professional development, step up faculty recruitment and create opportunities for the new school to collaborate with other institutions and community organizations.

Carlos Alvarez is the late founder of Gambrinus Co., the beer distributor and importer known for introducing Mexican beers Modelo and Corona to the U.S. and for building Texas’ Shiner Brewery into a craft-beer institution.

Before his death last year, the businessman also emerged as one of the Alamo City’s deepest-pocketed philanthropists. In March 2021, he donated $20 million to UTSA, the institution’s largest-ever gift from a living donor, and he’s extended major gifts to UT Health San Antonio, Texas Public Radio and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

“The Alvarez family’s extraordinary generosity affirms the timeless value of the arts and humanities at the heart of a Trinity education,” Trinity President Vanessa B. Beasley said in a statement.  “This transformational gift ensures that generations of Trinity students will be inspired by disciplines that center culture, creativity and the human experience to expand our understanding of the world and our place in it.”

The Alvarez family has been an active funder of Trinity for almost two decades, according to school officials. A 2005 donation from the Alvarezes launched the campus’ Mexico, the Americas, and Spain (MAS) Program, which includes study abroad, internships, research and cultural programming.

“Carlos believed that education and the arts open doors to understanding ourselves and one another,” Gambrinus CEO John Brozovich, Alvarez’s son-in-law and a Trinity trustee, said in a statement. “This commitment to Trinity University reflects who he was as a husband, father, and leader. Our family is honored to see his values live on through the Carlos Alvarez School of Arts and Humanities.”

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This article appears in Sep. 18-Oct. 1.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...