what your investment in ut makes possible
field of dreams
jan./feb. 2012
Alumni gifts breathe new life into a beloved campus green space
How is your university changing the world? The Campaign for Texas is a major fundraising effort to increase UT’s quality, competitiveness, and impact. Right now, with help from donors like you, The University of Texas at Austin is tackling cancer, researching new diabetes treatments, developing technology for new fuels, addressing social issues, fostering the arts and humanities, and much more. So far 27% of UT alumni have given to the college, school, program, or department that is dearest to them during the campaign. Join us in supporting your university. Large or small, every gift matters. Our goal is to be the best public university in the nation. Our mission is to change the world.
Make a gift to UT giving.utexas.edu/CampaignForTexas 866-4UTEXAS
changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible
Contents
Texas Lacrosse has a new campus home.
cover: credit:
Brian Birzer Photography
Scholars and faculty come together at a Harrington Fellows gathering. The program has drawn academic stars from 94 universities.
above:
CAVEN LACROSSE AND SPORTS CENTER AT CLARK FIELD
credit:
Marsha Miller
Campus favorite gets new look, new features, new name
PUBLISHER, AUTHOR, ARTIST Fleur Cowles’ archive comes to UT
ENHANCING THE UNIVERSITY FOR 10 YEARS Harrington Fellows Program enters second decade
TRAINING TOMORROW’S ENERGY-INDUSTRY WORKFORCE Software donations help UT do more with less
reprinted from jan./feb. 2012
changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible
field of dreams
Alumni Drive Clark Field Revamp Clockwise from center: Scott
Caven helps dedicate the Caven Lacrosse and Sports Center at Clark Field; the women’s lacrosse club conducts an intrasquad scrimmage the first day at its new home; the Longhorn Band lends some musical pomp to the festivities.
credits: This page:
Brian Birzer Photography; Opposite: Harry Ransom Center
58 | The
L
acrosse, anyone?
Students can now enjoy that and other club and intramural sports on a newly renovated Clark Field, thanks to two Houston families with strong ties to the University. The $4 million project was made possible largely through private gifts. The Division of Recreational Sports, which manages the facility, covered the remainder and continues to raise supporting funds. Located west of San Jacinto Boulevard and south of 21st Street, the popular green space now features a synthetic turf playing surface, a refurbished track, new exercise stations, restrooms and lockers, and a new pedestrian bridge across Waller Creek. Former chair of the UT System Board of Regents H. Scott Caven Jr., BBA ’64, LLB ’67, and his wife, Vivien Caven, BS ’72, Life Members, made the first major gift to launch the renovation. The couple wanted to upgrade Clark Field, make it accessible to more students, and redevelop it to accommodate Texas Lacrosse, one of the best collegiate programs in the Southwest.
The Cavens first approached UT about renovating the field in 2005 in memory of their son, Scotty Caven, a Plan II Honors student whose athletic passion was lacrosse, and in honor of the many family members who have been involved with UT for more than 90 years. In recognition of their dedication and leadership, along with their steadfast support for the sport, the field has been renamed Caven Lacrosse and Sports Center at Clark Field. “This day is special for my family and me as we help create a permanent home for men’s and women’s lacrosse,” Scott Caven said at the center’s November dedication. “I am honored that through the generosity of many contributors, UT students will enjoy the wonderful experiences that many of us alumni had, participating in a variety of sports on this historic field.” The other major commitment to the renovation came from longtime UT supporters Gary Crum, MBA ’72, and his wife, Sylvie Crum, BA ’74, Life Members. The Crums’ daughter, Clayton, is
Publisher, Author, Artist
Fleur Cowles’ Archive Comes to UT
A
“ I am honored that through the generosity of many contributors, UT students will enjoy the wonderful experiences that many of us alumni had, participating in a variety of sports on this historic field.” a co-captain of the women’s lacrosse team, and Sylvie Crum is former chair of the Longhorn Foundation Advisory Council. The original Clark Field, named for UT proctor and regent James Benjamin Clark, was at 24th and Speedway and was used by the athletic teams from 1887 to 1927, when the University claimed the land to build Taylor Hall. The next location made way in the 1970s for the College of Fine Arts and Performing Arts Center, and the field has stayed put at its current site since then. Now, in addition to being a magnet for students who enjoy jogging and getting an outdoor workout, Caven Lacrosse and Sports Center at Clark Field will serve as a championship-quality campus venue that replaces Whitaker Fields, three miles north, as home for Texas Lacrosse. Support is still needed for Caven Lacrosse and Sports Center at Clark Field. Visit utrecsports. org/friends/initiatives/clarkfield.php. Donors of $1,000 or more through Feb. 1 will be named on a plaque to be installed this spring.
s a humanities research library and museum housing some of the world’s finest cultural collections, UT’s Harry Ransom Center has always had a certain flair. Now it has the complete Flair, following the donation of the personal archive of Fleur Cowles (1908–2009). Cowles published Flair, a magazine celebrated for its provocative design, enlightened articles, and sophisticated advertising layouts, in 1950-51. Its brief run left an indelible mark on publishing, and the archive documents that period with Cowles’ correspondence, manuscripts, galleys, research material, albums, books, press clippings, and photographs. With Flair, Cowles prescribed a rich mix of works from writers, artists, critics, and other notables, including Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden, Simone de Beauvoir, Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Rufino Tamayo, and Gypsy Rose Lee. The heart of the magazine was its success in pulling together the new, the controversial, the innovative, and the creative. The archive documents her efforts to merge literature and art through her wide-ranging relationships and creative endeavors. Cowles and her husband, Tom Meyer, had a longstanding relationship with the Ransom Center, and the Ransom Center has an endowment named in their honor. It supports a graduate internship program, the biennial Fleur Cowles Flair Symposium, research fellowships, and a replica of Cowles’ study from her London residence. “Fleur was very interested in the Ransom Center and our aim to bring together literary and artistic achievements of the 20th century,” says center director Tom Staley. In addition to her work in publishing, Cowles was an author and artist. She wrote more than 15 books, including a biography of Dalí, and exhibited her artwork in galleries and museums around the world. Some works are on display in the center’s Fleur Cowles Room. Movers and Shakers: Fleur Cowles’
Flair magazine was one of many notable projects in a remarkable, century-spanning life. Cowles liked to surround herself with movers and shakers, as here with Ransom Center director Tom Staley and playwright Tom Stoppard, whose archive also resides at UT.
s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2011
| 59
changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible
enhancing UT Prestigious Harrington Fellows Program Enters Second Decade
I
Donald and Sybil Harrington are familiar, it could be because they built a hugely successful independent Texas oil and gas operation — or because they chose to share their good fortune to aid worthy causes. The Amarillo couple married in 1935 and later created the Don and Sybil Harrington Foundation to benefit medicine, education, and the arts. Today the Harrington legacy remains far-reaching, not only in the Texas Panhandle but across the nation. After Donald’s 1974 death, Sybil, who lived another 24 years, conceived the idea of a fellowship in his honor, a program to support gifted and ambitious young scholars of all disciplines at levels matching or exceeding prestigious longstanding programs.
credits: Marsha Miller
except Harrington portrait, courtesy Harrington family
60 | The
f the names
Distinguished Alumnus and fellow Amarilloan Wales Madden, Jr., BA ’50, LLB ’52, Life Member, was instrumental in bringing together Sybil, the Harrington Foundation (now affiliated with the Amarillo Area Foundation), and the University to create the Donald D. Harrington Fellows Program. Madden worked with former UT president William Cunningham, the late Shirley Bird Perry, and then-executive vice president and provost Gerhard Fonken to design the framework, and the first Donald D. Harrington Fellowships were awarded in 2001. Since then, scholars from 94 universities in the United
States and 10 other nations have received 48 faculty fellowships and 102 graduate fellowships. These highly sought-after fellowships have a considerable impact at UT: they enhance its reputation among the world’s top universities, encourage relationships with those institutions, and bring to campus some of the brightest scholars out there. Dedicating themselves to a period of intense study in their chosen field, Harrington fellows collaborate and explore ideas together and with other scholars on campus. They attend events like receptions and lunches that build a sense of community. Some fellows
Software Donations Help Train Tomorrow’s Energy-Industry Workforce present their work to the Amarillo community at an annual all-day symposium. Perhaps most important, the program provides a boost to the careers of highly talented individuals, benefiting not just them but all of society. Michael Pettes, a 2005 fellow who came to UT from Duke University, received his doctorate and now continues to research carbon nanotubes as a postdoc in the Cockrell School of Engineering ’s Advanced Manufacturing Center. Pettes and his colleagues are producing new insights on a material with tremendous potential in electronics and other fields. Harrington support in his first year at the University provided “unparalleled intellectual stimulation from some of the world’s brightest minds,” he says. “The fellowship allowed for focus on research with significantly more risk and longer timelines than would have otherwise been possible.” Yale law professor John Fabian Witt’s faculty fellowship allowed him to write a book, which came out in 2007: Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law. “The extraordinary generosity of the Harrington Fellows Program, along with the warm collegiality of colleagues at UT, shaped the book in ways that made it far better than it otherwise would have been,” he says. “I’ll always be grateful for the timely assistance the Harrington program and UT offered.”
Unparalleled intellectual stimulation from some of the world’s brightest minds Not all Harrington fellows remain in academia. Kimberly Hopkins arrived via UC Santa Barbara and completed her PhD in mathematics in 2010. Now a senior associate with a national taxconsulting firm, Hopkins says activities outside the classroom were a large part of her success at UT, and that her fellowship made many of those things possible. Conferences she was able to attend, for instance, enabled her to mix with and learn from others in her discipline. At the same time, like all recipients she had the chance to focus deeply on her research. “That skill of applying intensity and ambition to get a job done — it transferred to my job search and to the way I do my job now.” Learn more about the Donald D. Harrington Fellows Program at utexas.edu/harrington.
T
ake America’s largest geosciences school — the Jackson School of Geosciences — and its top university petroleum and geosystems engineering program — at the Cockrell School of Engineering — connect them with some of the world’s leading geotechnology software companies, and the synergy that results is no small wonder. Landmark Graphics Corporation (a subsidiary of Halliburton Company), Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Paradigm, Seismic Micro-Technology, Inc., and IHS Global, Inc., produce cutting-edge computer applications that help oil and gas companies improve business performance while reducing exploration and development risk. The software these companies create represents the state of the art in energy-related fields, so it’s only natural that UT, a major pipeline of personnel and expertise to the energy industry, uses it regularly as a teaching and learning tool. And thanks to more than $208 million in software donations from these corporate partners over the past five years, the University has been able to do more with less, a necessity in tight budgetary times. Professor Mary Wheeler, director of the Center for Subsurface Modeling, says the donated software has had a profound impact on training students in areas such as enhanced oil recovery and carbon sequestration. “These contributions have been valuable in ensuring that we’re working with proper and effective data, so that we can remain a frontrunner in academia and research,” Wheeler says. “They help the University continue to graduate tomorrow’s leaders in the oil and gas industry.”
Opposite, clockwise from lower right: Sybil
and Don Harrington in the 1940s; Victoria Rodriguez, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School, foreground, chats with fellows at a 2009 dinner; a 2005 reception at the Littlefield Home. Above: Postdoctoral fellow Reza Tavakoli uses donated software at UT’s Center for Subsurface Modeling. The center studies the behavior of fluids in permeable geologic formations like petroleum and natural gas reservoirs.
campaign update giving.utexas.edu/campaign
As of January 1, 2012, alumni and friends had made nearly 800,000 gifts to the Campaign for Texas, contributing $1.8 billion toward the campaign’s $3 billion goal. Donors have funded 951 new endowments since the campaign began, representing 19% of UT’s total number of 5,009 endowments. The value of these new funds will continue to grow, but already they are projected to provide $13 million for the 2011-12 academic year, directly benefiting the students, faculty, and programs they were created to support.
Changing the World is produced by the University Development Office. Please send your feedback and suggestions to editor Jamey Smith at jjsmith@austin.utexas.edu. For more news and information about giving to UT, visit giving.utexas.edu.
s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2011
| 61