STATE UNIVERSITIES
LSSU Foundation receives second-largest estate gift
The Lake Superior State University Foundation has received the second largest estate gift in its history. The Kaleel D. and Josephine I. Jones Trust is donating $1 million to LSSU to support scholarships in engineering, nursing, teaching and criminal justice.
MSU alumni donate $3 million for basketball facilities
Michigan State University alumni Mark and Cindy Pentecost have made a $3 million donation that will support the MSU men’s basketball program. This donation is in support of Empower Extraordinary, MSU’s fundraising campaign. It will be used to update the men’s basketball offices and practice facilities and to establish an endowment for continued facility improvements.
EMU receives $1.5 million for STEM technology
Yichun Xie, the director of Eastern Michigan University’s Institute for Geospatial Research and Education, recently won $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation to work with 120 Michigan teachers. The grant will help teachers integrate geographic information systems and technology applications (which help strengthen learning in science, technology, engineering and math) into their curricula, thus enhancing career possibilities for their students.
PEER INSTITUTIONS
Gates Foundation grants Stanford $50M for vaccine discovery
Stanford University has received a $50 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate efforts in vaccine development. The grant will build on existing technology developed at Stanford, and will establish the Stanford Human Systems Immunology Center. The center aims to better understand how the immune system can be harnessed to develop vaccines for the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.
University of Texas engineering receives $3.5 million for labs
The Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin has received a $3.5 million gift from Texas Instruments (TI) to develop state-of-the-art teaching and project labs for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The TI Laboratories will be located in the Cockrell School’s Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC), set to open in 2017.
