Why We Give: J. Keith Behner and Catherine M. Stiefel

THE GIFTS

Named the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies and the J. Keith Behner and Catherine M. Stiefel Endowment in SDSU’s College of Arts and Letters; established the Catherine M. Stiefel Scholarship in the Charles W. Lamden School of Accountancy in the Fowler College of Business.

THE DONORS

J. Keith Behner and Catherine M. Stiefel are a couple with a global perspective. Throughout their lives, both have lived and traveled extensively outside the continental U.S.

Although Stiefel grew up mostly among the mountains and valleys of upstate New York, her father’s business took the family abroad, where they lived for a time in Puerto Rico and London. She is conversational in Spanish and credits the international experience with broadening her worldview through exposure to different cultures.

Similarly, Behner, a Southern California native, spent part of his childhood in Hawaii and most of his high school years in Rio de Janeiro. He served two deployments in Vietnam with the Navy Seabees in support of Marine Corps and Army combat operations.

Their similar backgrounds and shared interests led the couple to establish San Diego State University’s Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies in the College of Arts and Letters in 2014. Their goal, according to Behner, was to create “the most comprehensive Brazilian studies program in the United States of America.”

In a decade, the Behner Stiefel Center has become one of the premier centers for Brazilian studies among American colleges and universities. In fact, it was selected by the international Brazilian Studies Association to host its BRASA XVII 2024 Biennial Conference in April.

Coinciding with the conference, Erika Robb Larkins began her two-year term as president of BRASA. Larkins is an SDSU anthropology professor, endowed chair of the Behner Stiefel Center and the center’s director.

With Behner and Stiefel’s support, which includes a gift establishing its endowed chair, the center is realizing the potential the couple had envisioned.

In 2022, the couple made a gift to the center to support the study of climate change and sustainability in Brazil, South America’s largest country. Its intent was to link SDSU faculty from multiple disciplines with scholars from Brazil to enhance sustainability research and provide resources for student research experiences.

With the rapid destruction of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, research opportunities abound and are becoming increasingly important.

“My focus from a philanthropic perspective is on the environment because of the loss of habitat and the loss of animal species, and just the loss of health of the planet, which is the loss of human health,” Stiefel says. “That’s a worry about the future—and that’s probably how I got started in philanthropy.”

“With their extraordinary generosity, Keith and Cathy are propelling San Diego State University to new heights of excellence. Their visionary gifts drive discovery and enrich the lives of countless students, faculty and community members.”

Behner and Stiefel say their philanthropic focus has narrowed through the years to the connections among education, environmental sustainability and social justice. “What we have found is these things are inextricably linked together: You can’t separate one from the other, and they encompass so many other things,” Behner says, adding that sustainability is the main focus of the Behner Stiefel Center and an overarching priority at SDSU.

“The fact that San Diego State, the whole university, has come to focus so much on the issue of sustainability is really a great thing. Making people understand, through education, what the realities of things are and moving them to focus attention and directions will ameliorate some of these difficult and intractable problems that we have.”

Behner and Stiefel view SDSU as a resource and an ally. They are discerning when deciding where and how their gifts should be allocated, which institutions and organizations will maximize the impact of a donation.

“We want them to be efficient,” Stiefel says, “which means that we think SDSU handles our money well.”

Stiefel holds a B.S. in accounting from the Fowler College of Business, where she established the Catherine M. Stiefel Scholarship. She and Behner support Fowler Scholars, a program that develops ethical business leaders.

They’ve also worked to create a relationship between the Fowler Scholars program and the Barrio Logan College Institute. The BLCI helps prepare underserved students from elementary through high school to become the first in their families to earn college degrees.

The couple created the Stiefel Behner Charitable Fund at BLCI to help make students’ higher education dreams become reality. Three former BLCI students have enjoyed recent success at SDSU, where two have already earned degrees, including one from the Fowler College of Business, and the third is a senior. Stiefel and Behner have known them since they were very young.

“It’s absolutely splendid,” Stiefel says of the students’ success. “University leadership has just been enormously supportive of BLCI graduates, so it’s been a productive and very gratifying relationship.”

The students’ success is tangible proof that the challenges and the problems can be met and solved.

“I can feel like I’m contributing,” Stiefel says. “A frustration with giving is feeling like you’re making a difference when the problems that you’re trying to influence are huge. So I try to do things that make me feel like I am accomplishing something.”

Behner adds: “These are very serious and troubled times, and it’s difficult to keep your balance and your perspective, but that’s what you do. You figure out where you can make the difference, and you do it. You try and change the things that can be changed, and you have to live with the ones you can’t.

“When you get to be my age, you focus on your kids and your grandkids and on everybody’s kids and grandkids. So we’re using our resources in a way that we believe will help [their] future. That’s what we’re about.”