8 minute read
IMPACT
IMPACT
THE MAGAZINE OF THE UCF FOUNDATION
Doing Their Part
President Alexander Cartwright and First Lady Melinda Cartwright
Cartwrights commit $250,000 across the university
President Alexander N. Cartwright and his wife, First Lady Melinda K. Cartwright, arrived at UCF in the middle of a global pandemic, knowing the foreseeable future was going to prove challenging. They also knew they wanted to do their part to secure the university’s future.
Within their first weeks on campus, the Cartwrights donated $25,000 to emergency relief funds to help immediately and then pledged an additional $225,000 to priorities including scholarships for first-generation students, STEM research, the humanities, athletics and an unrestricted fund to be used for the university’s greatest needs. “We gave to the areas that we value most,” Cartwright says.
The Cartwrights were both first-generation students who received some funding through Pell Grants, which are subsidies provided by the U.S. government for students who demonstrate exceptional financial need. When Mrs. Cartwright’s Pell funding ran out, she, like so many other students, had to find other means to pay for her studies.
“I started taking out student loans and working jobs as a waitress and doing whatever I could to try and make it through,” she says. “We hope to take that burden away from other students, so they can focus on their studies.”
“It’s just one small way that we could pay back to future generations what was given to us by people who were generous,” President Cartwright says.
Shining Knight
Kristina Merritt '12
“I’m proud to be a Knight because UCF is truly a remarkable institution,” says Kristina Merritt ’12, a first-generation college graduate who earned dual bachelor’s degrees in psychology and political science before going on to law school.
In February, Merritt was named to UCF Alumni’s 2020 class of 30 Under 30, chosen for her professional success and her focus on giving back to her alma mater and the community. Then in September, she was announced as the year’s Shining Knight award winner in the Young Alumni category.
As the philanthropy chair of the UCF Alumni Tampa Bay Chapter, she partners with local nonprofit Feeding Tampa Bay and serves as chair-elect for the Junior League of Tampa’s Kids in the Kitchen program, where she focuses on child welfare and education. At UCF, she gives to help fund scholarships for firstgeneration Knights and students in the College of Sciences.
Giving to scholarships was an easy choice because, she says, the scholarship support she received as a student — combined with her parents’ belief in her — was critical to her own success.
Top-ranked Programs
For the second time in five years, UCF’s graduate game design program was ranked No. 1 in the country this spring by The Princeton Review and PC Gamer magazine. Located at UCF Downtown, the program trains approximately 130 graduate students as artists, programmers and producers in the gaming industry. The undergraduate game design program also ranked highly at No. 14.
Also this year, the Rosen College of Hospitality Management was ranked the No. 1 hospitality and tourism program in the U.S. and the No. 2 program worldwide in the ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, which is considered the most influential ranking among world-renowned universities, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
In the College of Community Innovation and Education, the graduate program in Emergency and Crisis Management was ranked No. 2 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, while the Nonprofit Management program was No. 5. In all, 27 graduate programs across the university were ranked in the top 100 of their fields this year.
A GREATER COMMITMENT
Kyle Simpson '11
How a former President’s Leadership Council chair has already helped generations of future PLC students just nine years after his own graduation.
“You’ll be surprised how many people are willing to help if you ask,” says Kyle Simpson ’11, reflecting on how important it is to find mentors to better navigate inevitable hard life decisions. “I benefited from the wisdom and encouragement of several mentors during my time at UCF. I knew I wanted to do the same for future UCF students, but in a way that felt authentic to me.”
Simpson has been helping ever since he was a student at UCF. A former chair of the President’s Leadership Council, (PLC), a selective student organization whose members serve the university by acting as a student advisory group to the president, Simpson has been giving generously to help fund scholarships for UCF students since the year after he graduated.
But this year he made an even greater commitment to future PLC students by establishing an endowed scholarship. Because endowment gifts are kept and invested, rather than spent, they provide support to generations of students through investment earnings, which grow gradually over time.
“It’s an awe-inspiring group of students,” Simpson says. “When I was on the Council (2009–2011), we had future doctors, future professional athletes, even a rocket scientist. I’m proud to have served on PLC and was thrilled to create an award specifically for those students.” He hopes the scholarship produces a group of recipients who feel connected to each other, to PLC and to the university.
Currently, Simpson serves as philanthropy chair of the UCF Alumni Board and sits on the finance committee of the UCF Foundation Board but wants to continue to support his alma mater in multiple ways, even though he’s now living in Philadelphia.
Bob Case '70 and College of Business Dean Paul Jarley
WHAT AN HONOR
How an outpouring of generosity has ensured that the dedication and service of a beloved College of Business alumnus will be remembered in perpetuity.
When Bob Case ’70 passed away unexpectedly in April 2020, UCF’s College of Business lost an integral part of its history. Part of the college’s first graduating class, Case later served as a member and chair of the Dean’s Executive Council. He was inducted into the College of Business Hall of Fame in 2002 and honored with the college’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
Now, a new teaching and learning space for the Department of Integrated Business will be dedicated in Case’s honor. The project is funded by gifts from another prominent business graduate, Jessica Blume ’80; from the department’s founding chair, Jim Gilkeson; and from members of the Integrated Business Advisory Board. Gilkeson also documented an estate gift to fund student scholarships.
The recognition is particularly meaningful since Case was a founding member of the Integrated Business Advisory Board and remained instrumental in the program as it grew in just five years to become UCF’s eighth-biggest major.
“This new classroom allows Dr. Gilkeson and his talented group of instructors to continue the format of instruction that is so successful,” says Blume. “Bob would be so pleased that it is dedicated in his honor.”
Case’s legacy will be represented beyond the new classroom too. In September, his widow, Jan, moved by the generosity of Blume, Gilkeson, and the advisory board, made a commitment of her own to establish an endowed scholarship in his name for integrated business students. Because the scholarship is funded by an endowment, it will grow with time, helping students for generations to come.
Bob would be very humbled by this,” says Jan. “What an honor."
STAYING AFLOAT
College of Nursing Dean, Mary Lou Sole, with Josée Etienne
How private philanthropy helped Josée Etienne and hundreds of other students make it through COVIDrelated fi nancial crises
At the beginning of March, halfway through the second semester of her junior year, things were falling into place perfectly for Josée Etienne. She had secured a full-time, paid internship with Orlando Health for the coming summer that would cover both her rent and her tuition for the three summer classes she needed. The following year, she would finish her clinicals, coursework and honors thesis and graduate in May 2021 with her bachelor’s in nursing.
Then COVID happened. Etienne’s internship was canceled and she had no other source of summer income. “I was nervous,” she says, “I was scared. Tuition was still due.”
Help came in the form of the College of Nursing Student Emergency Fund, a fund established years earlier and maintained by private donations to support students through financial crises like the one Etienne was facing. Thanks to the emergency fund, she and five other students in similar circumstances were able to stay afloat through a difficult summer and return to UCF this fall.
At the same time, several donors stepped forward to replenish the fund, led by UCF Foundation board member Carrie Callahan and by the Gertrude Skelly Charitable Foundation, which gave $25,000.
Across the university, similar stories played out — students in sudden financial distress because of COVID who were helped by donor-funded emergency support programs. Many benefitted from $200,000 in funding donated by the Helios Education Foundation for so-called completion grants — one-time grants to help COVID-affected students cross the finish line.
As for Etienne, she’s still on track to graduate in May 2021. After that, she hopes to work in a neonatal intensive care unit for a few years before returning to school to pursue her doctorate in nursing practice. “I want to use that degree to travel to some less fortunate countries and give back. There’s a lot of mothers out there who need prenatal and neonatal care, and I would love to be able to give them some of my time and knowledge.”
