KU Giving Issue 8

Service and outreach | Changing chancellors | Tax-free IRA transfers

For Friends of the University of K ansas • fall 2009 • kuendowment.org

VISIONS OF KU STEVE PUPPE

Early autumn light graces Marvin Hall, which opened in 1909 at the west end of Jayhawk Boulevard. Named for Frank O. Marvin, KU’s first engineering dean (1891-1913) and the son of third chancellor James Marvin (1874-1883), it was rededicated in 1982 and renamed for both men.

It houses architecture, urban planning, engineering and design programs.

KU GIVING KU Giving is published three times a year, in spring, fall and winter, by KU Endowment, the private fundraising foundation for the University of Kansas. You are receiving this magazine because you support KU. We welcome your comments, suggestions and questions. Contact the editor at kugiving@kuendowment.org or 800-444-4201.

building a greater university

KU Endowment’s mission is to solicit, receive and administer gifts and bequests for the support and advancement of the University of Kansas.

FALL 2009 I volume 3 I number 2

Features

DEPARTMENTS

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Kansas and beyond

KU lends a hand, builds bridges, transforms lives.

KU Engineers Without Borders traveled to Azacilo, Bolivia, for its first international project.

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LETTERS

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PRESIDENT’S NOTE A new era on the Hill

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EVERY GIFT MATTERS Alums create a new scholarship

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ACROSS KU

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WHY I GAVE

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i am ku Law student wins in Taipei

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WAYS OF GIVING Interesting IRAngements

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GREATER KU FUND Chancellors Club Scholar goes weightless

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AMONG FRIENDS

Road to diversity

In a changing world, KU works to welcome all students and faculty.

Donors help make it happen.

By Kirsten Bosnak

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Past and present Changing times, changing chancellors

26 KU’s Multicultural Resource Center is available as a gathering place for all students.

ON THE WEB Tax-free IRA transfers: Are you eligible? kuendowment.org/transfer/ Photo gallery: KU Engineers Without Borders in Bolivia kuendowment.org/bolivia/

A great team: KU students Bowe Neuenschwander, Karen Ohmes, Lake Wooten, Jackie Paschang and Stephen Hinton.

COVER: KU’s come a long way, but the work isn’t done yet.

See story page 18 PHOTO BY brian goodman

THAD ALLENDER

Our core values Passion for KU The generosity of alumni and friends influences the very fabric of KU, helping the university advance the frontiers of knowledge. We are dedicated to serving the university and helping it achieve its aspirations.

Partnership with donors Our donors empower us to accomplish our mission. We pledge to faithfully administer their gifts, adhere to their philanthropic intentions and respect their requests for privacy.

Perpetual support The long-term vitality of KU represents our ultimate, unwavering goal. We strive to wisely invest funds and steward property, with the goal of achieving the greatest possible assurance of long-term financial support for the university.

People-centered approach Our team of employees, trustees and volunteers guides our present and shapes our future. We seek to attract and develop the best talent, value each individual’s unique contributions and celebrate diversity as a strength.

Inside the campanile

ways to support ku 100% of your gift benefits the area of your choice at the University of Kansas.

Online Giving — You may make a gift securely online using your debit or credit card. Visit kuendowment.org/givenow/.

Gifts of Stock — By donating appreciated securities or mutual fund shares, you can provide a lasting contribution while receiving tax benefits, such as capital gains tax savings.

Real Estate — Your gift provides a convenient way for you to enjoy a charitable deduction based on the current fair market value of your property, and it can reduce the size and complexity of your estate.

Give by mail — Gifts made by check should be payable to KU Endowment and mailed to: KU Endowment P.O. Box 928 Lawrence, KS 66044-0928 Estate Planning — To remember KU in your will or estate plan, be sure to name The Kansas University Endowment Association (our legal name) as beneficiary.

Our federal tax i.d. number is 48-0547734.

If you already have named KU Endowment in your estate plan, please contact us so we can welcome you to the Elizabeth M. Watkins Society.

We also offer life-income gifts that provide income and immediate tax benefits.

Call our director of gift planning at 800444-4201 during business hours, or visit kuendowment.org/giftplanning/.

FALL 2009 I VOLUME 3 I NUMBER 2 KUENDOWMENT.ORG CHAIR, BOARD OF TRUSTEES Kurt D. Watson President Dale Seuferling Senior Vice President, Communications & Marketing Rosita Elizalde-McCoy Editor Kirsten Bosnak Contributing Editors Charles Higginson Lisa Scheller Art DIRECTOR Chris Millspaugh gr aphic designer Melissa Meyer Editorial ASSISTANT Sarah Aylward EDITORIAL INTERN Mitchell Voth professional consultant Carol Holstead KU Associate Professor of Journalism

CONTACT US KU Endowment Communications & Marketing P.O. Box 928 Lawrence, KS 66044-0928 785-832-7400 or toll-free 800-444-4201 Email: kugiving@kuendowment.org kuendowment.org POSTMASTER: Send address changes to KU Endowment, P.O. Box 928, Lawrence KS 66044-0928

- FOUNDED 1891 -

LETTERS

Spring 2009 Our previous issue featured stories on the new Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation and plans for a new academic programs director at KU’s Spencer Museum of Art. Find all issues of KU Giving online:

kuendowment.org/publications/

Honoring a mentor We received this letter with a gift for the Christina Merrill Bradford Scholarship Fund in journalism.

I met the late Christy Bradford through KU’s Multicultural Scholars Program for journalism students . She was my professor, mentor and dear friend.

Through my four years at KU, Christy constantly challenged me to set high academic and professional goals.

She encouraged me to pursue ambitious story ideas and think like a journalist. I could always count on her unflinching support to help me do the best job possible in every assignment. If she didn’t know how to help me, she knew someone else who did — and made sure I could get in touch.

She was more than a career coach, however — she became my “college mom” and best friend. She called me kiddo just about every time I visited her office. “All right, kiddo,” she said as I was preparing to leave. “Don’t get into too much trouble!” Sometimes she laughed — a laugh that shook her frame and made her eyes sparkle.

I can never fully express her legacy in my life. Even now I still think about her and wonder what she might say about a certain situation or quandary.

She is one of the reasons I chose to be a journalist, and I want others to have the same one-on-one mentoring and opportunities I had through the Multicultural Scholars Program.

Jayhawk at heart My dad, Dr. John Lynn Gidley of Houston, passed away at age 84 this past March. Although a Longhorn by Ph.D., he was a huge honorary Jayhawk.

My father’s parents, who called him LynnABoy, worked hard to keep their six kids in food and clothing. When the Great Depression hit, every penny counted, and his father shot dove and squirrel for the dinner table.

Among WWII veterans, you wouldn’t find anyone more grateful for the GI Bill than my dad. He was hired out of school by the Humble Oil Company, now Exxon. During his 31-year career there, he was responsible for eight patents, and he taught as a visiting professor in petroleum engineering at Texas A&M from 1992 to 1998.

He used his ExxonMobil 3-to-1 match to really amp up his charitable contributions for education, including his gift to help endow the Gidley Scholarship for KU debaters — the 2009 national champions!

LynnABoy was a devoted father and grandfather, organizing the annual Gidleyfest family reunion, and was known for his warmth and humor. He enjoyed teaching and always stressed the importance of education. He set an amazing example.

MARK GIDLEY Communications and economics ’83 McLean, Va.

Back in the day In our spring issue, we included photos of two couples who were dedicated, longtime KU fans. Donor Bill Belt, ’39, in a letter to one of our fundraising staff members, shared his own memories of KU athletics and agreed to let us pass them on to readers: During my years at KU, I followed the football and basketball teams closely. After World War II, while I was working on my doctoral degree, I was an assistant instructor in the Spanish department and the Department of Physical Education, where I taught fencing and badminton. In those days there was no field house, and the basketball players had to practice in Robinson Gym. The department coaches and staff shared the same locker room. I had a locker next to Phog Allen!

I am doing pretty well for an old guy who is 92 ½. I work on the treadmill three days a week and do water exercises in our pool three days a week. I hope the coming year will be a good one for KU Endowment.

WILLIAM T. BELT College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ’39 Master’s in Spanish ’41 Doctorate in Spanish ’54 Austin, Texas

Write to us

KU Giving, KU Endowment P.O. Box 928, Lawrence, KS 66044-0928 Email: kugiving@kuendowment.org Fax: 785-832-7493 We welcome your comments on our magazine and invite you to share your KU experiences with our readers. Please include your name, address, email and daytime phone. Letters may be edited for length and clarity; we assume letters are intended for publication unless indicated otherwise.

SHANXI UPSDELL Journalism and English ’08 Shawnee, Kan.

KUENDOWMENT.ORG |

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PRESIDENT’S NOTE

A new era on the Hill Lisa Scheller

Dale and Marci share a fatherdaughter moment on a visit to campus.

T

he year was 1973, and I vividly remember that sweltering July day. I was one of hundreds of freshmen going through orientation on Mount Oread, knowing my life was about to change.

It was a new era, a turbulent time in our nation’s history, the time of Vietnam and Watergate.

We heard during orientation that a new humanities building was going up across the street, to be named Wescoe Hall. It would have a large plaza where students could congregate. That was quite a stretch for me to visualize — all I could see was a pile of concrete behind a huge temporary barrier.

Along with our freshmen class came KU’s 13th chancellor, Archie Dykes, who succeeded Raymond Nichols that year.

Flash-forward to 2009, and I’m feeling a sense of déjà-vu. I attended freshman

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orientation with my oldest daughter, Marci, this summer. She’s starting her college career at KU along with our 17th chancellor, Bernadette Gray-Little.

The campus has changed in many ways since 1973. That plaza we heard about is now known as “Wescoe Beach.” It may not be the most picturesque spot on campus, but there’s no better place to feel the pulse of the student body.

Marci and her classmates don’t know this yet, but many of KU’s buildings, labs, libraries and faculty are here thanks to people like you — donors who believe KU is a place where talented students can reach their aspirations.

I sat during orientation, reminiscing about the great faculty members who challenged and provoked my generation to get rid of old stereotypes and ideas.

Our nation has been transformed in the last 36 years, in many ways for the better. Today’s students probably take for granted that an African-American woman would emerge as the top candidate to become chancellor of KU. But those of us who grew up in a different time and place have a different sense of the significance of her appointment.

I welcome Gray-Little with confidence that she will accomplish great things at KU. As the father of two daughters, I couldn’t be happier to see a scholar of her caliber take the helm at my alma mater. And all of us at KU Endowment stand ready to help her lead us to new heights.

It’s a new era, indeed.

Dale Seuferling, President

EVERY GIFT MATTERS KU archives

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Not exactly “Animal House”: Members of the GP10 in this 1983 photo of Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall residents include (1) Tom Magliery, (2) Bob Duran, (3) Gene Field, (4) Dennis Linse, (5) Tom Matches, (6) Paul McAllister, (7) Fred Sherman, and (8) Rick Arnoldy.

Grace notes Hall alumni create new scholarship It’s true they’re a close-knit group of friends. The alumni of KU’s Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall share a lot of memories.

Chris Courtwright, journalism and economics ’83, remembered how he and his housemates found an old copy of Food for Fifty in the hall and quickly learned to multiply all measurements in the recipe book by one-and-a-half. The recipes as written never seemed to feed all 48 students and their resident director.

Set up as a cooperative in 1955, the hall was funded by Joseph R. and Gertrude Sellards Pearson and named in honor of Joseph’s sister, Grace. It served as home base for most of its residents for their entire undergraduate careers. Because many returned each year, the bonds forged there ran deep.

“Many of us email daily,” Courtwright said.

Out of this correspondence grew the idea for a legacy: The Grace Pearson Alumni Scholarship. Ten alumni, who call themselves the “GP10,” pooled their money. Bob Duran, hall resident from

1983 to 1986, said the initial idea was to chip in a set amount each year to help a hall resident.

“The first year we collected the money and gave it all away,” he said.

Partnering with KU Endowment and the Department of Student Housing, the GP10 soon set their sights on creating an endowed fund for the scholarship, a $25,000 goal at that time.

The GP10 continued to build the fund even as they gave away scholarships each year. The scholarship has assisted

“When I was a student at KU, I used to look at the buildings on campus and think, ‘You know, when I get rich I’m gonna donate a bunch of money and get a building named after me. Maybe even a new basketball arena!’ ...

“Well, reality set in pretty soon after my first paycheck. Still, though, I have always thought it would be cool to provide a scholarship to a GP resident every year. So I had an idea. What if we all chipped in and created a scholarship of our own?”

seven students so far, and in April 2007, it reached the $25,000 goal.

The group started with just 10 donors, but the members hope their numbers will grow with each new graduating class. The GP10 gather annually to celebrate each new recipient, an effort to foster the relationships between current and former hall residents — and inspire scholarship recipients to donate when they become alumni.

Duran hopes the group’s idea will spread: “It would be great if other scholarship halls could use the same type of grassroots fundraising model.”

— Sarah Aylward

SUPPORT THE CAUSE

Contact Dan Almanza, 785-832-7341 or dalmanza@kuendowment.org, to create a new scholarship fund or to contribute to the Grace Pearson Alumni Scholarship.

Or give online at kuendowment.org/ gracepearson/.

— Bob Duran, electrical engineering ’87, in a 2001 email to fellow Grace Pearson Hall alumni KUENDOWMENT.ORG |

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Jon Robichaud

ACROSS KU

Wild winds A new CD by the KU Wind Ensemble, recorded at the Lied Center on west campus, showcases the group’s performance of five new compositions, but that’s not all. It also gives fans a way to help KU bands as they add to their music collections.

The record label, Naxos, will donate $1 to the Band Scholarship Fund at KU Endowment for every copy of the CD bought online from the label’s website.

The disk, called “Wild Nights!” after one of the tracks, is part of the Naxos Wind Band Classics series. It features Vince Gnojek, professor of music, as soloist on John Mackey’s five-part suite “Concerto for Soprano Saxophone.”

The album also includes works by Frank Ticheli, David Dzubay, Steven

Scott Weiss, KU’s director of bands, conducts the KU Wind Ensemble. Purchases of the group’s latest Naxos CD support KU band scholarships.

Bryant and Roshanne Etezady. It’s fresh music — all written after 2003.

Wind Ensemble, conducted by Scott Weiss, director of bands, is KU’s top wind band. It regularly commissions and records new works. It recorded the first release in the Wind Band Classics series, “Redline Tango,” in 2006.

To get your copy of “Wild Nights” — and send a dollar to the Band Scholarship Fund — visit kuendowment.org/ wildnights/. This will take you directly to the Naxos sales page for the CD. To give directly to the Band Scholarship Fund, visit kuendowment.org/winds/.

— Charles Higginson

An observatory on your own roof might seem like a great idea. But the KU Department of Physics and Astronomy has an even better one: using the Mount Laguna Observatory, halfway across the country at San Diego State University.

Why would KU astronomers want access to a telescope so far from home? The answers are observational quality and high-speed networks.

The observatory is 45 miles east of San Diego, surrounded by state and national parks — which means velvety dark, star-filled skies. Mount Laguna also benefits from smooth air flow off the Pacific Ocean, which brings steady atmospheric conditions.

Most observatories are operated at a distance. They are built to stabilize the telescope by separating it from heat-generating elements such as control rooms, computers and human operators. KU students in Malott Hall send instructions and collect data over Internet II, a high-speed

network reserved for research and scholarship — communicating instantly with the Mount Laguna telescope 1,600 miles away.

KU and San Diego State are working together to install a new 1.25-meter mirror in a telescope at Mount Laguna.

The telescope also will be upgraded to include an imaging system with four times the area of the current camera.

The “125 in 125” fundraising campaign refers to the plan for a fully operational 125cm telescope by 2011, as well as the 125th anniversary of observational astronomy at KU. San Diego State has funding in hand to cover its share of the cost of the project. KU’s share is $450,000, and half must come from donations or grants.

To find out more or to support “125 in 125,” contact Brandie Stormes, 785832-7465 or bstormes@kuendowment. org, or visit kuendowment.org/ telescope/.

— Charles Higginson

Starry skies NASA, ESA, DSS, and L. Bedin (STScI)

The Mount Laguna Observatory will enable KU astronomy students to record images of objects like this star cluster, NGC 6791, 13,300 light years away in the constellation Lyra.

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Waving the wheat in Detroit “The idea of attending college was a distant dream for many of these youngsters, let alone attending an out-of-state school,” Bob Lantry said.

“Now, they all want to go to KU. Whenever one of the students gets an ‘A’ on an assignment, all the students stand and wave the wheat.”

Aside from an in-depth Lawrence campus and Audio-Reader tour, the students learned how to apply for financial aid to attend KU. They also visited the Kansas Capitol and Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, the KU Medical Center campus, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and a Kansas City Royals game at Kauffman Stadium.

KU Endowment’s Greater KU Fund helped support the group’s visit.

—KU University Relations

KU University Relations

This past year, a group of 11th-graders from the Motor City went crimson and blue.

In June, 26 students and five chaperones from Eaton Academy Charter School in Eastpointe, Mich., in the Detroit area, toured KU and its environs.

The students devoted the 20082009 school year to fundraising for KU’s Audio-Reader, which provides services for the visually impaired. In the course of their volunteer efforts, the Eaton students embraced KU as fans and aspiring Jayhawks, going so far as to deck out their classroom in the crimson and blue.

Their connection with KU came through their teacher, Joni Lantry Kostich, whose father, Bob Lantry, volunteers for Audio-Reader.

Eaton students watch as Prof. Ron BarrettGonzalez, aerospace engineering, demonstrates how an alloy can be bent then spring back to its original shape when heated.

KU bioscience researchers soon will have a place where they can turn their inventions into startup companies. And they won’t have to leave campus to do it.

After more than three years of planning, and having secured nearly $8 million in commitments, the LawrenceDouglas County Bioscience Authority is about to begin construction of a wet-lab business incubator on KU’s west campus.

KU Endowment is leasing KU the land, valued at $500,000, at no charge.

The 20,000-square-foot facility, which will be ready in 2010, also will provide

space for existing companies to work in collaboration with KU faculty. A pharmaceutical company, for example, could rent space for a year and fund a special project that utilizes KU expertise.

The incubator marks a milestone in economic development cooperation between KU and the community. When operational, it will be owned by the bioscience authority and managed by the Lawrence Regional Technology Center.

Marketing of the incubator has already begun through a website, www.ldcba.org.

— KU University Relations

KU Design and Construction Management

Best place for bioscience Easy to work together The new bioscience incubator will be near these west campus buildings, making it easy for researchers to collaborate: • Multidisciplinary Research Building • Structural Biology Center • The new School of Pharmacy building, under construction • The Higuchi Biosciences Center

KUENDOWMENT.ORG |

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WHY I GAVE

Dr. J.H . Baker, 1945

Dennis Farney

Campus landscape preservation Donor: Dennis Farney, journalism ’63, master’s in political science ’65, Kansas City, Mo. Farney is a retired correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

Gift: $10,000 Purpose: For replanting and preservation of KU’s historic Mississippi Street terrace following completion of the first phase of major utility tunnel replacements. The area’s landscape plan was influenced by a proposed KU Heritage Garden for the site.

The terrace, which is west of Lippincott Hall between Jayhawk Boulevard and Mississippi Street, is situated within the original 40-acre parcel of the university. It was part of the initial campus plan developed in 1904 by renowned landscape architect George Kessler, who developed Kansas City’s system of parks and boulevards.

Why I Gave: “When I came to KU, it was a revelation to me to find a campus that treasured beauty, not only architectural, but landscape and natural beauty as well, and I didn’t have to go to Paris to find it. That was probably the most lasting effect KU had on me. I hope these plantings become the framework and catalyst for an even more beautiful garden on this site over time.”

— Dennis Farney

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Ida Looney

Nursing scholarship Donors: Herb Looney, architecture ’69, San Antonio, who is retired from Southwestern Bell; and his brother, Ronald Looney, a telecommunications consultant, who attended KU in the mid-1960s, Lenexa, Kan. Gift: $10,000, with an additional $2,000 match from AT&T Purpose: To create the Ida G. Looney nursing scholarship in memory of their mother.

Ida Looney never had the chance to go to nursing school, but during the last 20 years of her life, she volunteered at Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Lenexa, Kan. Her sons always knew their mother wanted to be a nurse. After her death, they came across her faded high school yearbook, which was autographed by classmates who encouraged her to pursue her goal of becoming a nurse.

They then realized the extent of her lifelong dream.

Why I Gave: “Our mother wanted to be a nurse, she wanted to be in the medical profession, she wanted to be able to help people. We felt that we could honor that wish by giving these funds to KU’s School of Nursing to help produce more health care professionals — and she would be a part of that.”

— Herb Looney

Rural health care Donor: The J.H. Baker Trust, LaCrosse, Kan. Dr. Baker practiced medicine in the western Kansas town of LaCrosse for 61 years, starting in 1915.

He delivered more than 5,000 babies, established the county’s first private hospital and later helped found the county’s first public hospital. He died in 1976, having established a trust whose beneficiaries include KU Endowment.

The trustee is Thomas Dechant, of LaCrosse; both he and his mother were among the babies Dr. Baker delivered.

Gift: $36,000 for the KU Medical Center’s Rural Primary Care and Research Program and $5,000 to support scholarships for western Kansas residents who enroll in KU School of Nursing’s online education program. Since 1981, the J.H. Baker trust has provided more than $744,000 to KU Endowment.

Purpose: The gift to the Rural Primary Care and Research Program provides a stipend for medical students who spend six weeks working with rural Kansas physicians. The gift for the online nursing program helps students who enroll in the RN BSN program and/or the master’s-level degree/family nurse practitioner programs.

Why I Gave: “Dr. Baker’s foresight has made it possible for prospective physicians and nurses and family nurse practitioners to be attuned to the medical needs of rural Kansans. I trust that Dr. Baker would be proud of what his vision is accomplishing.”

— Tom Dechant

Lizz Scott

Charlie and Pegg y Spitz

John Gladson

Social Welfare

Greater KU Fund

Donor: Elizabeth Scott, social welfare ’61 and master’s in social welfare, ’69, Independence, Mo.

Donors: Charles and Peggy Spitz, Wall Township, N.J. Charles, architecture ’72, and Peggy, occupational therapy ’70, each head their own firms.

Gift: $200,000 charitable remainder unitrust Purpose: To create a $40,000 endowed scholarship for students in the School of Social Welfare. The scholarship will be in memory of former professor Paul Brotsman, who taught at KU from 1949 to 1976. The remainder of the gift will establish an opportunity fund to provide flexible support for the school.

Scott’s gift was established through a charitable remainder unitrust naming KU Endowment as beneficiary. Charitable remainder unitrusts provide an income to the donor during his or her lifetime and later benefit the charity of the donor’s choice.

Why I Gave: “When people ask why I made this gift to KU, I tell them that nobody but my parents and the University of Kansas ever supported me, so of course I want to give back.

“The faculty was just tremendous and very aware of all the students’ needs. They were very helpful in getting people to reach their potential.”

— Lizz Scott jessica roberts

Online Gifts

ONLINE DONOR

Gift: The Spitzes give $1,000 annually to the Greater KU Fund, which gains them recognition as Chancellors Club members.

Purpose: The Greater KU Fund provides annual support for scholarships, faculty and key academic programs that might otherwise go unfunded.

The Spitzes also have established an architecture scholarship and provided support for the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Department of Occupational Therapy, the Williams Fund and the KU Alumni Association.

Both have received alumnus of the year awards from the areas where they took their degrees.

Why I Gave: “Our KU education opened doors for us. We decided once we had enough money we would establish two scholarships and also give to other parts of the university.

“We give to the Greater KU Fund so those at KU who have the knowledge can put it to best use. We think more people should give.”

— Charlie and Peggy Spitz

March – June 2009 Total giving: Average monthly giving: Average number of donors/month: Average gift amount: Largest gift:

$ 135,553 $ 33,888 191 $ 177 $ 25,000*

School of Pharmacy Donor: John Gladson, pharmacy ’73, a pharmacist, Girard, Kan. Gift: $500 Purpose: To support new construction to house the School of Pharmacy: a new building in Lawrence and a new addition in Wichita.

The expansions will help address shortages of pharmacists, particularly in rural areas, by allowing admission of 190 more students annually. Now, 31 Kansas counties have just one pharmacist, and six have none. KU Endowment is raising funds for scholarships, professorships and laboratory equipment.

Why I Gave: “I am grateful for the education I received at KU, and I designate a donation for the school each year.

This year, David Ochoa of KU Endowment came to visit me at my workplace, the Medicine Shoppe in Pittsburg. We talked about what a great investment the expansion is. It will be an economic boost, and it will improve health in smaller cities.

“David visited me even though I’m not a major donor. He invited me to the groundbreaking and thanked me for my gifts to KU through the years. That personal expression impressed on me that gifts of all sizes really are important and appreciated.”

Why I Gave Online: “So I would not procrastinate and fail to do it.”

­— John Gladson KUENDOWMENT.ORG |

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WHY I GAVE

FEATURED GIFTS

Supporting biosciences elissa monroe

Two recent gifts will support the work of KU Medical Center bioscience researchers like Leslie Heckert, left, the Marion M. Osborn Professor for Reproductive Sciences. Here, she works with Beth Dille, a doctoral student in molecular and integrative physiology.

New professorship will promote bioscience research A new professorship will support the work of a KU Medical Center researcher who is the principal investigator of at least one National Institutes of Health project grant.

The Chancellor’s Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences was created through a $2.3 million gift from BioMed Valley Corporation of Kansas City, Mo. BioMed Valley was formed in 2003 as an affiliate of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, which opened in 2000 and was founded by Jim and Virginia Stowers.

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KU GIVING | FALL 2009

The new professorship is in keeping with the Stowers’ long-held vision of preventing and curing disease through basic research on genes and proteins that control fundamental processes of cellular life.

“Bioscience research is at the core of what we do as an academic medical center,” said Barbara Atkinson, KU Medical Center executive vice chancellor and executive dean of the KU School of Medicine. “The lifesaving cures and new treatments that emerge from our labs enhance the lives of the patients we serve and create a robust environment to both teach and learn medicine.”

Professorships help the university recruit and retain exemplary faculty members. They also will help the medical center achieve its goal of becoming a world-class academic regional medical center.

The gift will generate additional state support for the professorship through the Kansas Partnership for Faculty of Distinction Program, created in 2000 by the Kansas Legislature. The law gives donors the opportunity to increase the impact of their gifts for endowed professorships.

Trailblazer leaves bequest Estate of Martha E. Peterson Gift will support medical research symposia Lora Weatherford Ellis stood by friends as they successfully fought cancer, but she lost her own battle with the disease.

Her daughter, Linda Ellis Sims, said it’s appropriate that the family give $300,000 from their mother’s estate to establish the Ellis Family Symposia for the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation. The monthly symposium will bring together engineers, clinicians, biologists, chemists, physicians and entrepreneurs who are working to find cures for medical conditions and diseases, including cancer.

Higher education and KU were both important to Berl and Lora Ellis.

After Berl passed away in 1987, Lora continued to live in Independence, Mo., less than a mile from Kauffman Stadium. Linda Ellis Sims said: “I think she would have been incredibly thrilled that this project helps KU’s and the Kauffman Foundation’s efforts to find cures and new pharmaceuticals to treat cancer and other diseases.”

The Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation is an umbrella that brings together researchers at KU’s Medical Center campus, the Lawrence campus, Children’s Mercy Hospital, the Institute for Pediatric Innovation, and other universities and hospitals. It fosters collaboration among researchers and bioengineers to hasten discovery of new drugs and biomedical devices.

Linda Ellis Sims and her husband, Russell Sims, of Independence, Mo., and Linda’s brothers, John Ellis, of Dallas, and Charles Ellis, of Wichita, made the gift to KU Endowment in memory of their parents.

The Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation was formed in December 2008 through an $8.1 million grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo. KU Endowment plans to raise matching funds of $8.1 million.

Lora Ellis

Ellis Family Gift: $300,000 Why I Gave: “The KU Medical Center will be even better equipped to serve the needs of the community once the KU Cancer Center achieves designation by the National Cancer Institute. We completely believe in what KU is trying to accomplish and feel very comfortable giving a gift to help it achieve this goal.”

—Linda Ellis Sims

A former dean of women at KU and a trailblazer in academia left a $1.1 million bequest that was received by KU Endowment this year. Peterson’s bequest will augment the Florence Black and Wealthy Babcock Professorship in Mathematics. Peterson, ’37, master’s in math ’43 and Ph.D. in educational counseling and psychology ’59, established the professorship in 2003, naming it for her former KU math instructors, who became her lifelong friends.

Peterson spent her early years on a wheat farm in north central Kansas and went on to become KU’s Dean of Women from 1952 to 1956 and continued her career at other universities. In 1967, she became president of Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia University in New York. She became the first woman president of Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1975. In the corporate world, she was the first woman to serve on the boards of directors of Exxon, Metropolitan Life Insurance and Dry Dock Savings Bank. She died in 2006.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

To support the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation, please contact Stephanie Grinage, 913-5885552, or sgrinage@kuendowment.org, or visit kuendowment.org/IAMI/.

Martha Peterson in the

1940s

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STEVE PUPPE

s a s n a K & d n o Bey

With help from Will Katz, director of KU’s Kansas Small Business Development Center, restaurateur Hilary Brown created Local Burger in downtown Lawrence.

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KU lends a hand, builds bridges, transforms lives.

S

ervice and outreach is the last piece listed in KU’s mission statement — the part that follows teaching and research. It’s often the part we think of last.

But for many people, it is the face of KU, the part that benefits them most directly. Across the university, students, faculty, staff and volunteers work with people in Kansas and beyond to meet specific needs. Often, the work takes place behind the scenes, away from the KU campuses: in neighborhoods, in city clinics and public school classrooms, even in other countries. Often, it is inextricably tied to learning.

In this story, we call attention to KU service and outreach programs and profile three specific projects that are part of a long list of services the university provides.

But that service doesn’t happen for free. Each program carries costs — for office space, materials and equipment, transportation — and many rely on donors, who quietly serve by making contributions to help meet those costs.

COURTESY/SARAH JARVIS

Sarah Jarvis, a member of the KU student chapter of Engineers Without Borders, takes a break, with friends, from the group’s summer project in Azacilo, Bolivia.

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Profile #1 KU Engineers Without Borders

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COURTESY/SARAH JARVIS

COURTESY/SARAH JARVIS

T

his past June, members of KU Engineers Without Borders traveled to Azacilo, Bolivia, for the group’s first international engineering project.

Azacilo, a farming community of about 27 indigenous families, is five hours by primitive roads from the capital, La Paz. Last year, the community expressed a need to improve sanitation efforts, and KU Engineers Without Borders began work on the project. Over winter break 2008, students traveled to the village to collect water quality samples, conduct a land survey and complete a health assessment of the community — all part of an effort to work with locals to build latrines.

Looking beyond sanitation management, the KU chapter designed a system that would transform waste into organic fertilizer. The goal is for each family to have a waterless composting toilet, said J.P. Bornholdt, project construction team leader.

The KU students and mentors worked with Azacilo residents to build six of 27 composting latrines in the community.

COURTESY/craig adams

Engineers Without Borders USA, incorporated in 2002, has more than 300 professional and student chapters. They support sustainable engineering projects aimed at meeting basic human needs. Projects are developed in response to requests from communities. The KU student chapter, formed in 2007, works under the guidance of faculty advisor Craig Adams, J.L. Constant Distinguished Professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering.

The chapter relies on donations for its projects, and student participants often pay out-of-pocket to cover their travel costs.

In two years, the latrines will provide safe compost for agriculture.

Lara Pracht, environmental team leader for the project, said it gave her engineering experience she wouldn’t have had sitting behind a desk at a general summer internship.

“I’ve been involved in the site/needs assessment, design, construction and customer relations,” she said. “I’ve been able to be a leader on a real project, not just a small piece of the puzzle.”

The KU students worked closely with the Azacilo residents and students from several universities in La Paz to ensure the project’s success.

The KU chapter raised its own funds for Azacilo, estimating the cost of supplies and tools at $25,000. Student participants each paid $1,000 toward travel costs.

“Our projects are expensive, and private donations are very important,” Bornholdt said. “We’re always looking to improve our networking base with engineering firms.” Every contribution from companies and individual donors helps, he said.

Left to right: Breaking ground for a latrine; laying the framework for a floor; building the basic structure.

In addition to continuing the Azacilo project, the group is planning to send students to Guatemala in the coming year with the Kansas City Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders. The KU chapter also works on local projects, such as Habitat for Humanity houses and a rain garden at the Pelathe Community Center in East Lawrence — a joint project with Haskell Indian Nations University. During winter and spring breaks, they have worked on projects in other U.S. cities, including Greensburg, Kan., and New Orleans.

— Sarah Aylward

BE PART OF THIS

To support KU Engineers Without Borders, contact Leigh Ann Hartman, 785-832-7351 or lhartman@kuendoment.org, or visit kuendowment.org/ewb/.

Profile #2 Cancer Patient Navigator

Deb walker

Cancer patient navigators are health care professionals who help cancer patients and their families and caregivers find the services they need.

The new KU-based patient navigator program was created through a $180,000 gift from Kansas Masonic Foundation. It’s a pilot two-year program operated through the Midwest Cancer Alliance, a cancer networking and clinical trials organization administered by the University of Kansas Cancer Center. One of the alliance’s goals is to facilitate advanced treatment for cancer patients as close to their homes as possible. Carol Bush, a registered nurse with experience in oncology, is the cancer patient navigator. Her office is at the KU School of Medicine-Wichita.

Finding out about the cancer is the first part of the challenge.

Rhonda Klug, left, with new friend Carol Bush.

Knowing what to do and where to go for help is the next.

J

ust days before her daughter’s June wedding, Rhonda Klug, of Great Bend, Kan., was diagnosed with breast cancer. Amid the flurry of wedding preparation, there was little time to research her next steps. When her daughter told her about the new “patient navigator” program, Klug picked up the phone.

She called Carol Bush, who took on the position of cancer patient navigator in May. Bush’s work with patients could be as simple as providing links to Internet sites, or informing them about what types of resources and services are available in their communities. A patient navigator can answer patients’ questions about prescription co-pays or financial assistance programs. If a patient needs transportation for medical appointments or even someone to pick up their groceries, a patient navigator can help.

Bush refers to herself as the local “cancer concierge.” “I’m trying to be the clearing house, or the central person, who is in contact with the patients and can direct them to all the resources they need,” she said.

Two days a week, Bush travels from her headquarters at the KU School of Medicine-Wichita to Great Bend, where she meets with patients at the Heartland Cancer Center. Her patients come to her from a wide area throughout central Kansas.

Klug first met Bush at the Heartland Cancer Center. She left with a packet of medical information written in layperson’s terms, a planner to help her keep track of her upcoming medical appointments, and a profound sense of confidence in regard to her cancer.

“I’m healthy, and I can handle this,” Klug said. “I can beat this.”

Klug also left knowing she’d made a new friend. “It seems like I’ve known Carol forever,” she said. “She’s so easy to talk to, and she makes you feel so comfortable.”

The personal visits are worth it, Bush said: “This helps the patients, their families and others in the community get to know me and trust that I’m going to be there to help them through this.”

This patient navigator program helps link Kansans, particularly those who live in rural areas, with the support they

need. Bush said patients are referred to her through physicians, case managers, social workers and friends, as well as family members — which was how Rhonda Klug learned of the program.

“I’m new at this,” Klug said. “I had never had anything medically wrong with me, ever. Here I thought I was healthy as a bug, and I end up on what is a new journey for me. Carol is helping me — and my family. They were scared to death. Having a patient navigator helps put everyone at ease.”

This is an important part of her work, Bush said: “The patients may not need help with finances or transportation. But usually, everyone needs an ear — somebody to listen.”

Cancer is a disease that can take anyone by surprise, Bush said: “Whether it’s my neighbor next door, a physician or a nurse — any time anyone hears ‘You have cancer,’ we’re all on the same page.”

— Lisa Scheller

BE PART OF THIS

To support KU’s Cancer Patient Navigator services, contact Missy Heidrick, 913-433-4990 or mheidrick@kuendowment.org, or visit kuendowment.org/navigator/.

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Profile #3 STEVE PUPPE

KU’ s Kansas Small Business Development Center The KU Small Business Development Center covers six counties, providing free counseling to area small businesses. In the past two years, it has helped start 81 new businesses, generate 236 new jobs and retain 382 jobs. While the center helps clients conquer budget issues, it is a nonprofit and cannot generate its own capital. It depends on state funds and support from KU Endowment. Additional resources could be used to extend its reach.

STEVE PUPPE

DAN COBURN

Working from a small office suite, Will Katz, far right, and his staff helped both Hilary Brown’s start-up and Dan Chavez’ family’s 40-year-old business.

T

here’s no fluff to the center. Its only expenses are office space rental and salaries for Director Will Katz, ’94 and MBA ’02, one other staff member and a KU student.

The office is in downtown Lawrence, but the center also reaches out to smaller communities.

“Many of these communities might not have strong ties to KU,” Katz said.

“We help put a face on KU — I take that responsibility seriously.”

In the past three years, the center has assisted more than 800 clients, from established firms to startups.

One well-established client is Chavez Restoration and Cleaning. The Topekabased family business specializes in water- and fire-damage restoration for homes and businesses. Though the company has been in business 40 years, it recently turned to the center for help.

“It’s hard to improve your business if you don’t know what to improve,” co-owner Dan Chavez said. “You can know your trade, but that’s different from being a well-run business.”

This past February, Chavez sought help when the company faced

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the possibility of having to lay off employees. Katz told Chavez about the state’s Shared Work Program, which would allow employees to work parttime while they receive supplemental income from the state. The company saw an increase in sales before it needed to apply to the program, but Chavez acknowledged that the company might have made cuts if he hadn’t known about the program.

“Knowing about Shared Work bought us time to think rather than feeling rushed,” he said.

The company’s next step is to expand business in Lawrence, and Chavez will look to the center again for guidance.

At the other end of the spectrum of the center’s long list of clients are startups like Local Burger, in Lawrence.

In 2005, Hilary Brown took a $50,000 loan and started Local Burger with the center’s help. She had little starting capital, but the center saw potential and prepared her for challenges.

“They helped me with confidence,” Brown says, and it shows: Now she’s in the process of expanding her business into the Kansas City area.

Brown’s eatery uses local ingredients to serve healthful, organic food. She had the dream of creating a community-connected restaurant for many years.

“I started developing a business plan with Will long before the restaurant broke ground,” she said.

Not only has the center helped Brown get started, it also has expanded her business knowledge; you can hear it in her use of terms such as capital, profit and loss, and balance sheet. All this help is free to Brown — something she stresses.

“You don’t have to be rich to start a business with the center,” Brown said.

And if you’ve read the reviews of Local Burger in Bon Appétit or Gourmet, you’ll know it’s not just any business; it’s a great one.

— Mitchell Voth

BE PART OF THIS

To support the center, contact Kacy Schmidt, 785-832-7421 or kschmidt@kuendowment.org, or visit kuendowment.org/smallbusiness/ and type in Small Business Development Center.

lisa scheller

Mark Mcdonald

JayDoc Free Clinic

Laura Lorson of KPR

Reach out with KU KU operates dozens of service and outreach programs that benefit both urban and rural communities. These programs range from Kansas Public Radio to the JayDoc Free Clinic in Kansas City, Kan. They include law clinics, social welfare offices, the Natural History Museum’s science summer camps for kids, and the Army Wounded Warriors Education Initiative.

Visit kuendowment.org/service/ to find collected links with information on many of KU’s service and outreach programs. Or contact the area of KU closest to your heart to learn about a program there that could benefit from your support. You can give to any program by visiting kuendowment.org/givenow/ and typing in the name of the program. Thanks for helping KU reach out.

Steve puppe

Jen Humphrey/KU Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum aquatic biology camp

Army Wounded Warriors Education Initiative

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Road to

DIVERSITY In a changing world, KU works to welcome all students and faculty. Donors help make it happen.

By Kirsten Bosnak

M

ike Shinn remembers a different KU. His professors, friends and coaches stood by him — a young engineering student and a member of the football team. But at the time, the early 1960s, there were virtually no resources at an institutional level for students like him. For students of color, that is.

But Shinn, who grew up in Topeka, had KU roots: “My attitude was somewhat driven by the fact that my grandparents and dad were from Oskaloosa and had a small farm. To supplement his income, my grandfather, Willis Shinn, hauled stone with a horse and buggy to help build KU. So I always felt, ‘I have a right to be here as much as anybody.’”

As a child, Shinn went to Topeka’s Monroe School with Linda Brown, whose family is the “Brown” in “Brown v. Board of Education.” As a KU student, he went to the nation’s capital and heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak at the March on Washington. But there was no Black Student Union at KU, no affirmative action, no universityrecognized assistance for underrepresented students.

Shinn was in on the early stages of a great shift at KU, driven largely by protest at both the national and local levels.

The shift began in the early 1950s. KU finally cast off a decades-old “gentlemen’s agreement” that had banned African-Americans from varsity sports and other activities.

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The local chapter of Hillel Jewish campus life group, one of KU’s oldest student cultural/religious groups, was created.

(This fall, the group will move from its longtime home on Indiana Street to offices downtown, and it will have its own rabbi for the first time.)

Then, in the ’60s, the civil rights protests began, and Mike Shinn and his friends took part. After the founding of Black Student Union in 1968, other groups followed: Hispanic American Leadership Organization (HALO), Queers and Allies, Asian American Student Union, First Nations Student Association. And many others.

Today, KU recognizes more than six dozen student cultural/ethnic or religious groups. It also offers resources such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs, which traces its beginnings back to the 1960s and 1970s protests; the Office of Diversity and Equity; minority recruitment programs in individual schools; minority alumni groups; the Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center; and scholarships that promote diversity, like the one Mike Shinn and his family created in 2000 for engineering students.

Among the most prominent resources have been KU’s Multicultural Scholars Programs and the Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center — both largely supported by donor contributions.

jason miller

A STAND FOR CHANGE

One of the most important things I did at KU was participate in a sit-in protesting the university housing list, along with other policies. KU made this list of local rentals available to students, but often, black students would go visit a house for rent, and they’d be told, ‘We don’t rent to black people.’ Why should the university support a list that’s not open to all students? Gale Sayers, Willie Ray Smith and I, all KU football players, took part. We were arrested and jailed for about three hours. The protest resulted in the university changing the policy.

“We were athletes; we knew the powers that be wouldn’t come down too hard on us. They could come down on the other students. We wanted to be part of it. It was for a cause, but we also were there to support the other students.

— Mike Shinn, aerospace engineering ’65 Shaker Heights, Ohio Co-captain, KU football team, 1965 Founding member, KU Black Alumni Association Retired consultant, General Electric Investment adviser, syndicated columnist KU Endowment trustee

KU archives

Mike Shinn helped create change at KU and still wears the colors of his alma mater proudly. • Left: Civil rights protests continued at KU the day after the March 8, 1965, sit-in outside the chancellor’s office, in which Shinn took part. Center to right in the photo are KU football players Shinn, Willie Ray Smith and Gale Sayers.

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NO TIME TO STOP

There’s a misperception that we are done, that we’ve accomplished what we need to. Women still are not represented in the same numbers as men in areas such as economics, political science and the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math. At every level, bachelor’s to master’s to doctorate, women in the U.S. earn less than men. On the business side, women are rarely represented in the CEO group.

“We have numbers on tenured professors by gender, and there is still a discrepancy; most university faculties are 15 to 25 percent women. That’s better than 20 years ago, but we are far from finished.

— Kathy Rose-Mockry Program Director, KU Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center

steve puppe

HERE, NOW

I grew up in Beloit, Kan., through ninth grade, then moved to Hawaii. Being raised in a small town, then in urban Oahu, I appreciate how Lawrence has the best of both worlds. It’s central — I love to travel, and you can go anywhere from here — and I like the proximity to Kansas City. Kansas has that aloha spirit, where you put family first, and friends are part of your family. There is the occasional racial comment, but I don’t judge people for that.

“AASU has about 40 core members now. We meet twice a month and host events, like ‘Taste of Asia,’ which was well attended. We learn about cultures and race, about civil rights and social issues. I wanted to be president so I could help build bonds between people of different cultures. Being involved is part of my education here.

— Maruel Unrein, Class of 2010 Communication Studies President, Asian American Student Union

Maruel Unrein spends a lot of time at KU’s Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center, which adjoins the Kansas Union.

Through the Multicultural Scholars Programs, now in eight professional schools and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, KU recruits undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds. The programs provide scholarship assistance, mentoring, advising, and leadership and professional development.

The Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center, perhaps KU’s most visible symbol of diversity, is a stylish brick building adjoining the Kansas Union. It houses staff offices and leads directly to an area of the union where the offices

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of various student groups are clustered together. The center itself offers a library, a spacious seating area where students can study or relax with friends, meeting rooms, and a large conference room with views of the Hill’s north slope. The center is available to all campus groups for receptions and meetings, further raising its visibility.

Since the 1950s, KU has become a place that promotes diversity at the institutional level. Where student groups talk to one another in formal and informal settings and gain new perspectives. Where faculty and staff rosters

COMFORTABLE CAMPUS CLIMATE

Over the past decade, KU has really begun to pick up speed and thrive in academics and athletics. It also has cultivated a positive campus atmosphere that integrates the interests of the diverse student body. It is not something you can quantify; it is a feeling on campus, a sense of opportunity that you can write a letter to the Kansan editor expressing your opinion, the power to start your own organization — and a sense of faculty and student dedication to breaking down stereotypes and building trust.

“I represented KU Hillel on a Leadership Roundtable made up of student leaders from all backgrounds, religions and interests. They told me their stories and were interested in mine. At the end of the day, we made KU a stronger, safer place through our respect for the groups around us.

— Stephanie Meyer, journalism ’09 Account coordinator, Tropicana, Dallas Immediate past president, Hillel Rachel anne seymour

OPPORTUNITY AT THE DOOR KU has a huge advantage in the recruitment of Native students with Haskell Indian Nations University right there in Lawrence. But most Native students head to the University of Oklahoma — which doesn’t have a Native university on its doorstep. If KU wants an example of how to recruit and retain these students, that’s where it should look.

They have multiple Native student groups there, not just one. They have Native American high school senior recruitment day, as well as staff and alumni donors who play an active role in the university.

“While Oklahoma has a whopping 39 tribes, Kansas does have four, plus several others in close proximity in Nebraska and the Dakotas.

— Ryan Red Corn, visual communications ’03 President/owner, Red Hand Media Inc., Pawhuska, Okla.

Former co-president, First Nations Student Association

At home in Pawhuska, Ryan Red Corn prepares to join his three younger brothers, Studie, Alex and Jon (inset, left to right), all KU alumni, at the annual Osage tribal dances. Their grandfather’s portrait hangs above the mantel.

reflect the overall population more closely than ever before.

Where — as we learned just a few weeks after we planned this story — the extraordinary talents of an AfricanAmerican woman are recognized, and she is invited to become our new chancellor.

All of which is not to say that all problems are solved, that misunderstandings and oversights are things of the past, or that the work is done. But across the university, recruiters are more and more successful in convincing prospective students, faculty and staff from

underrepresented populations that they can thrive in Lawrence and at KU. The university also is taking steps to create volunteer boards that reflect the alumni population.

In the brief profiles shared here, alumni, staff and students offer individual perspectives — all of which point to the benefits of engagement and dialog.

What does it mean to embrace diversity? It’s a question the KU community keeps before itself each day.

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YOU CAN’T GET THERE FROM HERE — YET KU’s main campus really does pose a topographic challenge.

Curb cuts, ramps, door openers, elevators — those help everyone: students, faculty, visitors — and the state assists the university with its physical plant. We usually have eight to 12 wheelchair users, but we serve about 600 students, with 100 to 120 who have a disability that’s either visible or medical. Our largest group, about 500 students, is made up of those with learning disabilities or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder.

“So what would we wish for, barring a leveling of our beautiful campus on the Hill? For us, it’s about access to the learning environment. It’s about technology. We have an accessible work

station in every KU library, with a terminal that has screenreading software — text-to-speech and speech-to-text, so both blind and deaf students can use it. And it’s only a matter of time before walking GPS devices become commonplace.

“We’d love to see an assistive technology lab with six terminals and software to assist with virtually every disability. It would be in a public space such as a library, and everyone would be encouraged to use it.

— Mary Ann Rasnak Director, KU Academic Achievement and Access Center steve puppe

WE WANT WHAT YOU WANT

During my term as HALO president we approached Hillel and Black Student Union, and later the Native American Student Association, in order to make it clear that from our view, diversity and the promotion of diversity started with us working together and wasn’t going to come from Strong Hall. It was a bumpy road because, within our own organizations, we had ideas about the other groups and were fighting for a piece of the diversity pie. But it was a lesson and experience I took from KU that has made all the difference in my life.

“At our first Hispanic Heritage Month celebration at KU, we brought in Cesar Chavez to speak, which was a dream come true.

During dinner with him, some of us mentioned that relationships with other groups could be better. He asked, ‘Why?’ and we told him our theories. He gave us a patient look and told us if we wanted a better relationship, we needed to reach out and let them know we wanted to work with them to achieve one of their goals.

“Later that night, I remember looking out over the crowd just before I introduced Cesar, and I recognized many members of the Black Student Union and Hillel. It made me reflect on Cesar’s earlier words. They didn’t have to be there; they could have easily gone to study at the library that night, but they were demonstrating to us that they were there to help us achieve one of our goals. That’s something I have never forgotten.

— Angela Cervantes, English ’94 Writer, Shawnee, Kan.

On Avenida Cesar E. Chavez in Kansas City, Mo. — a street named for one of her heroes — Angela Cervantes visits a mural by Juan Moya celebrating Mexican-American culture.

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1860s and early 1870s Women students outnumber men.

KU archives

1914 Florence Marley Brown named first Dean of Women.

1915 Alpha Phi Alpha, KU’s first black fraternity, established. Alpha Kappa Alpha, its first black sorority, formed two years later.

1941 Edward Williams is the first African-American student to graduate from the KU School of Medicine.

KU archives

1951 “Gentlemen’s agreement” finally lifted.

LaVannes Squires is the first African-American student allowed to join the men’s varsity basketball team, which wins the 1952 national championship under Phog Allen.

During a polio epidemic, KU Medical Center is forced to house black and white patients together in the Eaton Building, formerly the segregated black hospital.

jay lewis

Late 1950s Hillel chapter established.

1965 About 150 members of KU’s Civil Rights Council stage a March 8 sit-in outside the chancellor’s office to protest the university housing list and other policies supporting racial discrimination. Protest is reported in Chicago Tribune and Newsweek.

1960s-1970s Protest movements lead to recruitment of minority students, faculty and staff, as well as programming.

Asian American Student Union formed.

1997 KU creates Global Indigenous Nations Studies master’s program.

1968 Black Student Union forms.

1969 KU Women’s Resource Center established.

1970 Office of Urban Affairs created; name changed to Office of Minority Affairs in 1972, then to Office of Multicultural Affairs in 1999.

Three engineering students and some concerned faculty found SCoRMEBE (Student Council for Recruiting, Motivating and Educating Black Engineers), which would become today’s Diversity Programs of the School of Engineering.

The KU group that would become Queers and Allies is founded.

Courtesy/halo

1942 After the U.S. enters WWII, the Kansas Board of Regents votes to deny Japanese-American students admission to state schools.

Late 1950s and early 1960s Future Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills, one of five Native American students at KU, endures such racial epithets as “chief.”

1971 The group that would become HALO, the Hispanic American Leadership Organization, is founded.

1972 “February Sisters” protest gender inequities; Office of Affirmative Action for Women established.

1973 Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act bans discrimination on the basis of disability by recipients of federal funds. In the years that follow, KU increases staff who assist the KU community and visitors with disabilities.

1976 KU Black Alumni Chapter founded as part of the KU Alumni Association.

1980 Queers and Allies receives university recognition as a student group.

1999 First of KU’s Multicultural Scholars Programs established in the School of Business.

2007 Office of Multicultural Affairs moves to Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center.

2009 Bernadette Gray-Little named KU’s first female and first African-American chancellor.

KU University Relations

lisa scheller

1926 Watkins Hall for women, KU’s first scholarship hall, opens, funded

by Elizabeth Miller Watkins.

1991 Native American Student Association founded at KU; name changed in 1998 to First Nations Student Association.

lisa scheller

1912 “Gentlemen’s agreement” bars AfricanAmericans from varsity sports, dances, Glee Club, drama and other activities.

1990 Americans with Disabilities Act raises the profile of all people with disabilities.

1956 Emily Taylor named Dean of Women; in 1958, she establishes the first commission on the status of women on a university campus.

Courtesy/MBS Program

KU archives

1885 Blanche K. Bruce, grandson of a slave woman and a slave owner, is KU’s first African-American graduate. He goes on to become principal of a black school in Leavenworth, Kan.

KU archives

1867 Cynthia A. Smith, professor of French language and literature, becomes KU’s first female faculty member.

KU archives

A brief history

YOU CAN HELP

Visit KU’s website, www.ku.edu, and type “Student Organizations” in the Search box.You’ll find a list of nearly 600 groups. Within the list, which you can search by category, there are 40 registered student religious groups and 42 registered student cultural/ethnic groups. The website of KU Office of Multicultural Affairs, www.oma.ku.edu, provides information on many additional resources.

Any of these groups and resources would benefit from your support.You also can create a scholarship or other type of fund that promotes diversity at KU. Give to any KU program by visiting kuendowment.org/givenow/ and typing in the name of the program.

Or contact us at 800-444-4201 or 785-832-7400 to discuss your ideas.

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courtesy/beau Jackson

I am ku

Beau Jackson Law ’09 One day after walking down the Hill at commencement this past spring, four law school graduates boarded a plane for the European Law Students Association International Moot Court competition — not in Europe, but in Taipei, Taiwan.

At the competition, Beau Jackson received the award for best oral advocate.

For this issue of KU Giving, Jackson agreed to represent himself and teammates Ben Sharp, Christina Elmore and Carrie Bader in a conversation about the competition.

Jackson has accepted a job offer at a Washington, D.C., law firm specializing in international trade litigation.

What is moot court?

Moot court is like a mock trial. Law students participate in a legal proceeding as if they were doing it as professionals.

They get a legal problem and write briefs for the plaintiffs and defendants. Then they argue the case in front of a panel of judges. The tricky thing about moot court is that you have to take both sides in different sessions. That makes it both fun and difficult.

In the competition, students argue before a panel of three, five or seven judges.

Each round takes two hours. We go for about 50 minutes, then the other side goes for about 50 minutes, then there are rebuttals for about 10 minutes on each side.

These competitions usually last a few days.

This particular competition is sponsored by the World Trade Organization and focuses on international trade law.

The case all teams argued was whether a country can restrict importation of products that are purportedly harmful to the environment.

How did the KU team qualify for this competition?

During the second year of law school, students participate in an in-house competition. From there, certain students

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KU GIVING | FALL 2009

KU Moot Court team participants, from left, Beau Jackson, Carrie Bader, Christina Elmore and Ben Sharp at the top of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.

qualify to go on to compete in regionals and nationals. This past March, we qualified for the international finals at the North American regionals in Washington, D.C. We were thrilled, particularly because this was the first time a KU team has qualified for the top round of this competition.

We spent a lot of time practicing and preparing. Our professor and coach, Raj Bhala, helped us think critically about our arguments — what were the weak legal points and strong legal points, and how we could best articulate certain arguments.

It’s worth noting that our plane left at 7 o’clock the morning after we graduated from law school. After a 14-hour flight, we got to our hotel at 1 a.m., dead tired, only to learn we’d drawn the slot to compete at 9 o’clock that morning. But in real life as lawyers, we’re going to have things like that happen.

Where were the other teams from?

Our team was one of 19 universities from around the world. KU and Duke University were the only U.S. teams. There were two teams from South America, eight from Europe, and a few from Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The competition was all in English, so for a lot of students, English isn’t even their first language. It was amazing how well they spoke.

What were your impressions of Taiwan?

Going to Taiwan was the last thing I expected to do upon graduating from law school. I planned to graduate and just start studying for the bar exam. But it was wonderful. We stayed three extra days to sightsee. Taipei is a modern, bustling city with a population of 3 million.

The tallest building in the world, called Taipei 101 for its 101 stories, is there. Traditional Chinese culture coexists with a very modern, industrial city.

How was this experience meaningful to you?

I’ve been a Jayhawk since I was 6 — since Danny Manning and the 1988 men’s basketball championship — so I went to KU undergrad and then KU Law. This was my last experience as a student after spending seven years at this university.

So to be able to represent KU at the international stage of this competition was awesome. I love this school.

— Lisa Scheller

HELP MAKE THE CASE

Support KU’s moot court and other law programs by giving online at kuendowment.org/law/. Or contact Bill Lupton at 785-832-7321 or blupton@kuendowment.org. Find out more about moot court and other law programs at www.law.ku.edu/.

WAYS OF GIVING

Interesting IRAngements Right now, and only until the end of the year, there’s a unique way you can use your IRA assets to benefit KU. That matters because retirement plan assets that pass through an estate can get slammed twice, first by estate tax and again when the heir has to pay income tax.

But if KU Endowment receives those assets, there’s no tax. Your gift can support any aspect of the university: scholarships, teaching, research, programs. You may be able to establish a named endowed fund, or boost an existing fund.

If you’re over 70½, you probably know that the federal government waived required minimum distributions from IRAs for 2009. If you don’t need additional income, you won’t take a voluntary distribution. To make a charitable gift to KU Endowment, you could take a voluntary distribution and donate it, but you would have to pay income tax on it. Assuming you used funds from the distribution to do that, you’d end up with less to give away.

There’s an easy way around this — for a while. A law set to expire at the end of this year lets you transfer funds from an IRA directly to a qualified charity. You don’t take possession or pay income tax, you reduce the amount of your estate that’s exposed to income and estate tax — and your charity (KU Endowment, for example), gets a bigger gift.

Some fine print comes in here: The transfer must go directly from the account to the charity, so you’ll have to ask your account manager to handle it. There’s a $100,000 upper limit, but spouses with separate IRAs can each give that amount. Gifts can’t involve any quid pro quos, such as priority points from KU Athletics. And, these transactions are tax-neutral — you can’t

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IRA transfers offer great giving opportunities — especially this year.

Alumni from way back know KU sculptor Eldon Tefft’s iconic bronze Jayhawk, gift of the Class of 1956.

take a tax deduction for the gift, but you won’t be taxed on it either.

This might be the ideal method for you to support KU if any of the following apply: • you want to make a gift to KU now rather than later; • you have a taxable estate and want to avoid double taxation on inherited IRAs; • you don’t itemize deductions on tax returns; • you are subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax; • your other deductions and exemptions

have phased out because of high income.

Our development staff can help you choose the best use for your gift.

This provision will expire Dec. 31, 2009. As far as anyone knows, that will be the end of it. To take advantage, act now.

— Charles Higginson

FIND OUT MORE

To learn more about IRA bequest designations and tax-free transfers or to make a gift, contact John Hillis at 785-832-7413 or jhillis@kuendowment.org; or Nell Lucas at 913-588-5551 or nlucas@kuendowment.org; or visit kuendowment.org/transfer/.

The information in this article is not intended as legal, tax or investment advice. For such advice, please consult an attorney, tax professional or investment professional.

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GREATER KU FUND

Weightless NASA

Students from around the country took part in NASA’s Microgravity University in Houston this past spring. Above, a group gets ready to board the April 3 morning flight at nearby Ellington Air Field.

Chancellors Club Scholar experiences zero gravity.

To get accepted into the Microgravity University program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, you have to come up with a big idea. Last spring, Lake Wooten and four fellow KU seniors carried out their team’s big idea in a zero-gravity environment. They were among 20 teams from universities around the country.

The team built a robotic arm — made with a special metal called shape-memory alloy — and tested NASA

KU seniors Lake Wooten and Jackie Paschang go weightless during their flight.

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KU GIVING | FALL 2009

its movement during zero-gravity simulation flights. The arm could be used, for example, by astronauts to repair equipment during space walks.

The arm has no hinges or hydraulics.

The shape-memory alloy allows the arm to bend without them. “The more parts, the more you have to maintain,” Wooten said. “The advantage to NASA is that this is easy to maintain.”

Students who participated in the program raised funds themselves to cover their expenses. The KU group had to raise about $4,000 for food, lodging and materials. KU Endowment’s Greater KU Fund provided $500.

“Literally, we couldn’t have made it without you guys,” Wooten said, “because the $500 paid for gas.”

Wooten said the project caused him to shift his career interests. The Johnson Space Center specializes in manned space flights. During the project, the center’s physicians made sure students were ready for the weightless simulations. Wooten, who majored in both engineering physics and aerospace engineering, was inspired to consider becoming a doctor who works with astronauts.

A National Merit Finalist, Wooten came to KU in 2004 as a Chancellors Club Scholar — an honor funded in part by the Greater KU Fund. After his first few months at KU, he said, “I now view the scholarship not as a reward for my past, but as an investment in my future.”

After graduating this past May, he said the Chancellors Club scholarship was one of the reasons he chose KU because it showed the university was interested in him as an individual: “That meant more than the dollars I was getting. I’m more likely to be a Chancellors Club member myself, having been a scholar.”

This fall, he’ll go to Washington University in St. Louis to begin the Ph.D. program in biomedical engineering.

— Kirsten Bosnak

GREATER KU FUND

Through your gift of $1,000 or more to the Greater KU Fund, you will be recognized as a member of the Chancellors Club. Give online at kuendowment.org/greaterku/ or contact Judy Wright at 800-661-5870 or jwright@kuendowment.org.

AMONG FRIENDS roy inman

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Spring/Summer 2009 events

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At a June 3 gathering at the Mission Hills Country Club, KU Endowment President Dale Seuferling, far left, and Chair Kurt Watson, far right, present a painting of the chancellor’s residence at Homecoming, titled “Game Day at the Outlook,” to outgoing Chancellor Robert E. Hemenway and his wife, Leah. The KU Endowment Executive Committee hosted the reception honoring the Hemenways.

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lisa scheller

lisa scheller

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From left, Chuck and Sandy Garrett, of Eudora, and Jill and Richard Fanolio, of Mission Hills, show off centerpieces they won at the April 17 Watkins Society luncheon in the Kansas Union ballroom. The Elizabeth M. Watkins Society honors donors who have provided for KU through their estate plans or other deferred gifts. See more photos from this event at kuendowment.org/watkins09/.

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Sheila Martinez, Carol Ritchie and Sally Hare-Schriner exchange greetings at the Women Philanthropists for KU Advisory Board meeting April 25 at the Multidisciplinary Research Building on KU’s west campus. See more photos from this event at kuendowment.org/wp4ku/.

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rich kaler

rich kaler

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This spring, KU Endowment

staff traveled from coast to coast to meet alumni and friends at Chancellors Club gatherings. Counterclockwise from top: Terre Jones, Sheryl Tunison and Gene Tunison with Chancellor Hemenway at the April 21 gathering in Washington, D.C.; Sibyl Wescoe and Cindy Blair at the May 27 event in Carlsbad, Calif.; Mike Robe, Dana Anderson and Steve Larsen at the May 28 gathering in Los Angeles. The Chancellors Club recognizes donors of major gifts, as well as annual $1,000 gifts to the Greater KU Fund.

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PAST AND PRESENT ku archives

She is our first female chancellor and our first African-American chancellor, and she comes at a time of opportunity.

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KU GIVING | FALL 2009

ku university relations

Left, Chancellor Lindley hands the reins to Chancellor Malott in 1939. Above, photographers take some of Chancellor Gray-Little’s first portraits at the Outlook, with Chancellor Hemenway at hand.

Change, as always

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here are KU alumni who remember a time like this one, 70 years ago — when the country struggled with both hard economic times and questions about war abroad, when KU was poised for great change and ready to welcome a new chancellor.

In 1939, a little more than 70 years after the university was established, Chancellor Ernest Hiram Lindley passed the torch to Chancellor Deane Malott.

Lindley saw KU through the Roaring ’20s and the Great Depression. He served a total of 19 years, surviving a brief firing after a squabble with the governor. He was here for the opening of Memorial Stadium, the Kansas Union, Watson Library, Hoch Auditorium and other landmarks. Lindley also worked closely with KU benefactor Elizabeth Watkins, whose former home, the Outlook, is now the KU chancellor’s residence.

Her bequest of 25,000 acres of Kansas

farmland, given at her death in 1939, transformed KU Endowment from a small operation to a leading public university foundation.

Malott saw KU through World War II and managed the influx of returning GIs, who swelled the student population and brought along spouses and children. He was here for the dedication of KU’s beloved Danforth Chapel, and his wife, Eleanor, led the landscape planting effort that famously brought the redbuds, forsythia and crabapples that still adorn the Lawrence campus. These efforts reinforced KU’s pride in the campus beauty that amazes new visitors, including our incoming chancellor, Bernadette Gray-Little.

Robert Hemenway, who concluded 14 years as chancellor this summer, worked with KU Endowment to lead the university through its largest comprehensive fundraising campaign,

KU First: Invest in Excellence, which raised more than $653 million. During Hemenway’s tenure, KU dedicated itself to forward movement in the biosciences and took on the goal of achieving National Cancer Institute designation.

Minority enrollment increased 47 percent, and the number of women faculty grew 60 percent.

Gray-Little succeeds Hemenway at a time when the economy is down, war continues and KU is in the exploratory stage of its fourth fundraising campaign. She is our first female chancellor and our first AfricanAmerican chancellor, and she comes at a time of opportunity.

If history goes in cycles, 70 years from now, KU again may face a time of uncertainty and transition. But as in 1939 and today, it also will be a time of hope.

— Kirsten Bosnak

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