GRIST FROM THE MILL
GENEROUS GIFT TO BENEFIT NEW ADMISSIONS CENTER Two alumni have pledged $1.3 million for a modern, admissions center on campus. The gift from Virginia and Kevin Ruesterholz, both Class of 1983, will support the university’s planned growth in the size and selectivity of the student population. The donation will enable Stevens to renovate the historic Colonial House building and transform it into the Ruesterholz Admissions Center, a welcoming space for visitors. “Virginia and Kevin stepped forward once again in a significant way to help Stevens jumpstart the important work to support our university’s planned expansion,” said Stevens President Nariman Farvardin. “It is a great pleasure to know that such enthusiasm exists around our future.” “The Ruesterholz Admissions Center will provide a wonderful environment to welcome prospective students and their families to campus and have a tremendously positive impact on our admissions activities,” added Stevens Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Marybeth Murphy. In May 2013, Virginia Ruesterholz, a longtime executive at Verizon, was elected the first woman to hold the position of chairman of the
Stevens Board of Trustees. A member of the board since 2007, her contributions to Stevens are vast – from serving as chair of the advisory board of the School of Systems & Enterprises to championing a K-12 engineering education initiative at Stevens supported by the Verizon Foundation. She is also renowned for her 30-year career at Verizon, where she retired in 2012 as executive vice president and president of Verizon Services Operations. Kevin Ruesterholz is an attorney and head of Ruesterholz Law LLC in Morristown, N.J. He has more than 25 years of corporate experience with AT&T and Lucent Technologies in international business development, contract negotiations, partnership development and business management. The couple has served as co-chairs of the Edwin A. Stevens Society, the university’s leadership society for annual giving, and also established a scholarship fund for Stevens engineering management students. With their gift, the Ruesterholzes are helping the university in its 2012-2022 strategic plan, The Future. Ours to Create. By 2022, Stevens plans to grow the undergraduate student population by 60 percent and increase its full-time graduate student population by 30 percent.
Virginia and Kevin Ruesterholz, both Class of ’83, have made a generous gift that will bring a new admissions center to campus.
“As students, alumni and leaders at Stevens, we have been thrilled to witness firsthand the university’s incredible rise, and we are equally thrilled to contribute to its continued momentum,” said Virginia Ruesterholz. “We sincerely hope the new Ruesterholz Admissions Center is a valuable asset to university admissions and makes a positive impression on prospective students far into the future.” —Laura Bubeck
STEVENS REPORTS RECORD $26 MILLION IN PHILANTHROPY FOR FY ’13 The second year of Stevens President Nariman Farvardin’s service to the University has concluded with a record $26.3 million in annual fundraising, the Office of Development announced recently, making it possible to successfully complete the President’s Initiative for Excellence more than one year ahead of schedule. More than 4,000 gifts were made to Stevens during FY13. The $26.3 million total represents a 91 percent increase over the amount raised in the previous fiscal year, which itself was 189 percent greater than was raised the year before. Gifts made during FY13 included a $10 million commitment from Greg Gianforte ’83
and the Gianforte Family Foundation to support construction of a new Academic Gateway Complex; $1.3 million from Board of Trustees Chairman Virginia Ruesterholz ’83 and husband Kevin Ruesterholz ’83 to support creation of a new admissions center by renovating Colonial House; $1 million each from John Hovey ’57 and Frank Semcer ’65 to assist construction of the Gateway Complex; $2 million from the estate of Elbert Calhoun Brinning, Jr. to create The Viola Ward Brinning and Elbert Calhoun Brinning Endowed Chair in the Schaefer School of Engineering and Science; and $2 million from engineer, philanthropist and business executive A. James Clark to cre-
ate the Nariman Farvardin Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering in the Schaefer School. The American Bureau of Shipping also awarded Stevens $3 million to support construction of a new civil, mechanical and naval laboratory complex in the Davidson Laboratory. Support received during the fiscal year included a total of 24 newly created scholarships and a total of 26 newly created or realized bequests, both record numbers for a Stevens fiscal year. To learn more about giving to Stevens, visit www.stevens.edu/dev. —Paul Karr
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