FOUNDATION SVSU Today Notes
CAMPAIGN
Several “Campaign for Tomorrow” gifts have been made to enhance numerous existing scholarship and fellowship endowments, as well as to a general endowed scholarship fund. • The Hamza Ahmad Memorial Scholarship • Barnes & Noble Book Scholarship • Katherine N. Bemetz Scholarship • Blazejewski Biofuels Endowed Scholarship • Martin & Emma Block Endowed Scholarship • Barbara Ann Divine Nursing Scholarship • Gerald C. Francis Endowed Scholarship • James K. And Rosemary Hill Music Scholarship • Elston R. “E.R.” Huffman Memorial Scholarship • Jurgens Nursing Scholarship Fund • Thomas and Gladys (Benjamin) Kackmeister Memorial Endowed Scholarship • Leopold J. Kantzler Fellowship Fund • Ludington Fellowship Endowment • Marx Family Endowed Engineering Scholarship • International Student Scholarship funded by the Mridha Endowment • Sebastian & Ida Ramet Endowed Scholarship for the Study of Foreign Languages • Ronald A. Schlicker Endowed Scholarship • Seitz Creative Writing Scholarship • Maynard L. Smith Jr. Endowed Scholarship • SVSU School-University Partnership Scholarship
T
he Promise For Tomorrow campaign continues to move closer to its goal of $20 million. As reported in the spring 2007 issue of Reflections, the campaign was at $16.1 million. As of September 30, several new gifts have brought the campaign to over $19 million.
This endowment campaign has three strategic priorities: strengthening the University’s role in regional development; preparing leadership for regional schools and government; and attracting the best and brightest to our region. The Promise for Tomorrow is the largest fundraising campaign in SVSU’s history.
Progress Report:
Steering committee member B.J. Humphreys believes the success of the campaign is greatly due to the alignment of campaign priorities with regional concerns. “This campaign is about SVSU and our region partnering in progress. Recruiting talent, developing leaders and establishing distinctive programs is a recipe for success at all levels.”
Updates: The Gerstacker Fellows Program for Excellence in Educational Leadership The Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation established the Gerstacker Fellows program in 2006 and has since “graduated” one class and accepted participants for the second class. This summer, the first Fellows traveled to east Asia, spending time with educators and their primary, middle and high schools, as well as at Shanghai Normal University in China and SVSU’s sister institution, Shikoku University in Tokushima, Japan. According to Steve Barbus, dean of the College of Education, “Each day was filled completely with school visits, discussions and cultural events to help put what they (Gerstacker Fellows) were learning about education into a cultural context.”
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