Philanthropic investments allow us to create impactful, student-centered experiences that are simply not possible with state funding alone. The generosity shown by our college’s community of supporters helps students and faculty thrive and curate their NSM Stories in new and exciting directions.
One recent example of this comes in the form of a very generous gift by earth science alums Kay L. (BA ’77) and Brian (BA ’79) Pitts to our Department of Geological Sciences. Through Kay and Brian’s generous estate commitment, the department will have a new rotating endowed professorship. This eventual support will recognize excellence in a faculty member’s teaching and scholarship and provide funding for this faculty member to seek improvements in their classroom pedagogy, redesign a course, or pursue a new or existing research initiative. Our students will benefit through enhanced classroom experiences and opportunities to participate in faculty-mentored research experiences.
Each of our departments impacts the lives of our students every day, and to see this impact recognized in such a tangible way by our alumni is meaningful. I know that our smart and dedicated faculty will use the freedom these types of resources allow to design creative ways to educate our students in and outside the classroom.
We’ve also received an endowment to support students in our Department of Mathematics from our former and longest-serving department chair, Jim Friel, and his wife Betty – for which we are incredibly grateful. This is an example of a highly influential faculty member prioritizing paying it forward for the benefit of those who will come next. All of us in NSM know we inherited the college from those who came before us, and we take our responsibility to live up to their standards very seriously.
During our fifth annual #TitansGive Day of Giving, we raised nearly $34,000 to expand a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) program for our 100-level general chemistry students. The program’s first-semester pilot was a success, which gives us great hope that infusing the CURE throughout all general chemistry 2 course sections will improve student performance, problem-solving skills, and resilience. Additional generosity directed toward the NSM Dean’s Excellence Fund will allow us to bolster some innovative, faculty-led ideas that can help bring The NSM Story to life by empowering students to embark on a journey of exploration, discovery, and lifelong learning.
We were thrilled to, once again, celebrate our students’ academic excellence and bright futures at our annual NSM Awards Banquet and Commencement. We also proudly look upon the achievements of our faculty, like Emeritus Professor Richard Deming’s recent honorary doctorate in Chemistry awarded by Chiang Mai University, which recognizes his longstanding commitment to a student-centered project that allowed students to travel overseas during their time as Titans.
It’s evident that with our combination of bright and driven students, inspiring and committed faculty members, and generous donors, our potential impacts on the fields of science and mathematics, the regional, national, and global economy, and society are limitless.
Marie Johnson, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
