Investing in Genius

Mary Ellen May Johnson pledged $15,000 to NC State while she was still a student.

Donations made to NC State over the course of the Achieve! campaign give students and faculty members exceptional new opportunities to further their academic work and research to solve real-world problems. In many cases, funds were donated by alumni in appreciation of the outstanding education they received at NC State.

Mary Ellen May Johnson didn't wait till she was an alumna. Johnson, who graduated from the College of Natural Resources in 2006, pledged $15,000 to establish an endowed scholarship in Paper Science and Engineering while she was still a student. She later obtained a match by her employer, Sonoco Products Company.

Parents of students also made significant contributions. Impressed by their daughter's overseas study experience, Robert and Judy Abee, along with Sugar Tree Properties, pledged a gift of Watauga County property and an additional $500,000 to establish the Stephanie Devan Prague Scholarship for students who wish to study in Prague.

The Jordans are proud members of the Wolfpack family.

Entire families – like the Jordan family – pitched in to support NC State. The Jordan Family Endowment comprises the $400,000 Jordan Family Graduate Fellowship in Natural Resource Innovation, the $125,000 Jordan Family Undergraduate Honors Program, and the $1 million Jordan Family Endowed Professorship in Innovation.

And the business community was heavily invested in the campaign. A gift of $2.2 million from the Caterpillar Foundation and James W. Owens, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, will help NC State University build a global supply chain management program with academic, research and outreach components. This multi-faceted gift will establish the Owens Distinguished Professorship of Supply Chain Management and student scholarships within the College of Management.

Progress Energy donated $1.2 million to establish an endowed professorship in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering's power program and an endowed professorship in the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Duke Energy awarded the College of Engineering $1.25 million, establishing a professorship in nuclear engineering and a professorship in the power program of electrical and computer engineering.

Wachovia Bank supports fellowships for students in the Jenkins Graduate School of Management.

Recognizing that the global, technical economy has created a burgeoning demand for individuals with both writing talent as well as technical aptitude, SAS gave $1 million to create the Distinguished Professorship in Rhetoric and Technical Communication. This professorship will help attract and retain top faculty in the area of technical writing, in turn helping NC State become a leader in technical writing.

In recognition of his financial support of NC State, his model career and ongoing commitment to excellence, NC State named the graduate programs in the College of Management in honor of Benjamin Jenkins, vice chairman and president of the General Bank, Wachovia. Jenkins' gift will endow three professorships in the College of Management; one each in the departments of accounting, business management and economics. A related gift from Wachovia supports fellowships for students in the Jenkins Graduate School of Management's three programs – the master of accounting and master of business administration programs, as well as the graduate economics program, offered jointly by the College of Management and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Faculty and former faculty members also gave generously to NC State during the campaign. Renowned architect and one-time NC State professor Eduardo Catalano donated $200,000 to establish the Robert P. Burns Lectures and Seminars on Structural Innovations Endowment in memory of his student and friend. Catalano also gave a second gift of $400,000 – the largest outright gift to the College of Design at the time it was given in 2007 – to establish the Eduardo Catalano Endowed Lecture/Seminar on Innovations in Contemporary Architecture. Both these endowments will enable the School of Architecture to bring in distinguished visiting lecturers that will benefit students studying architecture.

Students benefit from $205 million in scholarships made possible by donations to the Achieve! campaign.

And, of course, some donations were made anonymously. For example, an anonymous donor's deferred $1 million gift provides funds for a professor and students to study and build an understanding of the various ways youth-oriented recreation and sports programs can contribute to a healthy lifestyle.

Many donations were in the million dollar range – or even greater, including:

In September 2005, Edward P. Fitts, founder and former CEO of global packaging company Dopaco, gave NC State more than $11 million to support undergraduate scholarships, graduate scholarships and sponsored research, several chaired professorships and three new programs in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE). As a result, ISE became the first named academic department at NC State.

Duke Kimbrell, CEO of Parkdale Mills, established the $3 million endowed Duke Kimbrell Scholarship Fund. The full scholarships are awarded to students from towns where Parkdale Mills has plants – such as Kings Mountain, Lexington, Sanford and Gastonia.

The Achieve! campaign pays for 68 new professorships at NC State.

As a testament to NC State's research expertise and elite reputation in the agricultural sciences, Dole Foods Company owner David Murdock donated $2 million to fund three David H. Murdock Distinguished Professorships. These positions will be housed at the North Carolina Research Campus in NC State's recently opened Fruit and Vegetable Science Institute.

Ray E. Hollowell Jr. has committed to the establishment of the first fully funded named chair at NC State University. The $2.5 million endowment will create the Ray E. Hollowell Sr. Distinguished Professorship, which will support the work of an eminent scholar working in the discipline(s) of viticulture and/or enology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The professorship and allied endowment will provide increased research and outreach support to North Carolina's burgeoning wine industry.

A $1 million gift from the Lampe family, which has a long history with the College of Engineering, created a professorship within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Donors gave $500 million to fund research across campus.

Herb and Kathy Council established a $1.29 million trust that will create an endowment for merit-based scholarships in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Having a historic connection to the College of Engineering and NC State at large, Clancy & Theys established the Clancy & Theys Endowed Professorship. Created by brothers Tim and Tick Clancy to honor the general contractor company's deceased founder, E.I. Clancy, the professorship was endowed by the company for $1 million, triggering $500,000 in matching funds from the state of North Carolina.

Tom and Mimi Cunningham have established a $1 million bequest with the NC State Engineering Foundation. It will provide full scholarships to students from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and it will add to the Dean's unrestricted endowment fund.

Link

• Achieve Campaign Web Site