View in browser | October 2021

For members of the Missouri S&T Order of the Golden Shillelagh

October 2021

Record-breaking $423 million in gifts concludes Rolla Rising campaign

A multiyear fundraising initiative, Rolla Rising, began in 2016 with a $150 million funding goal and ended June 30 with a record-breaking $423.4 million in gifts. During the campaign, OGS members confidently led the way to fuel Missouri S&T’s future while ushering in a new era of donor engagement. The $423.4 million campaign total includes $337.1 million in gifts received in S&T’s 2021 fiscal year. That unparalleled annual sum includes $37.1 million in individual gifts and the $300 million gift from OGS members June Kummer and her late husband Fred, CE’55. Expansions in scholarships, student support, academics, experiential learning programs, research, endowed positions and infrastructure are all in process, thanks to our imaginative and generous Rolla Rising donors. Read more. 

Please attend the Jack Carney Puck and Plaza dedication

To honor the late Jack Carney, Missouri S&T’s chancellor from 2005 to 2011, we will dedicate a new campus landmark at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8, as part of our 2021 Homecoming celebration. Carney led our university through significant growth and is remembered for his warmth, humor and steadfast commitment to S&T’s mission. 

OGS members Jim and Glenda Bertlesmeyer, Roger and Sandra Dorf, and Gary Havener, who worked closely with Carney, spearheaded a project to expand S&T’s iconic campus gathering place, “The Puck,” into a landscaped plaza named Jack Carney Puck and Plaza. OGS members Wayne and Barbara Alexander, Francisco Benavides, Ray and Susan Betz, Tim and Kay Bradley, Mike and Joyce Bytnar, Matt Coco, Dave and Sue Dearth, Bipin and Linda Doshi, Gary and Sherry Forsee, George and Nancy Hughes, Mike and Barbara Hurst, Steve and Leslie Malott, Chris and Darlene Ramsay, Ted and Sharon Weise, Joan and James Woodard, and Steven and Lyneve Wunning also supported the project. Many thanks to all of you for ensuring the completion of this beautiful new landmark!  

Join the 2021 Alumni of Influence Celebration Nov. 6

Twelve remarkable OGS members will share a well-deserved spotlight at this year’s Alumni of Influence Celebration. Every five years Missouri S&T and the Miner Alumni Association honor a carefully selected class of distinguished alumni who have helped shape the world and raise S&T’s reputation for excellence. This year’s awardees are a testament to the esteem our OGS members bring to our university. Please join us at this gala event Nov. 6 at Hasselmann Alumni House, to recognize them as we conclude our university’s 150th anniversary celebration. Registration is requested by Oct. 24. If you have questions, please contact Sarah Jones at jonessarah@mst.edu or 573-341-6359. 

Kummer Institute advances leadership, educational offerings

Momentum is gaining on the expanded educational, research and entrepreneurial opportunities at S&T made possible by the establishment of the Kummer Institute. Here are our updates: 

• President emeritus of Georgia Institute of Technology G.P. “Bud” Peterson has been named chair of the Kummer Institute Foundation Board of Directors, succeeding the late Fred Kummer, CE’55. Before joining Georgia Tech, Peterson was chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder, provost of Rensselaer Polytechnic and associate vice chancellor for engineering for the Texas A&M University System.  
• Creation of the Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development is well underway with its founding departments — business and information technology, economics, and engineering management and systems engineering. The Kummer College will focus its scholarship on new approaches to innovation, entrepreneurial thinking and technology-related economic development. 
• The Kummer Center for STEM Education (K-12) was created to provide STEM-related outreach and support to Missouri schools, and Courtney Jones has joined S&T as its founding director. Jones was a district curriculum coordinator and science specialist for the Jefferson City (Missouri) School District and was a high school principal in Arkansas.

Innovation Lab shines on the horizon

The Innovation Lab, a building designed to serve a collaborative community of students engaged in technology-rich thinking and innovative solution-finding is in the works. Inspired by the Kummer Institute, Missouri S&T’s new Innovation Lab will be a highly visible, two-level,  53,000-gross-square-foot building centrally located in the heart of the Arrival District next to the Havener Center. The high-tech building will house IDEA lab learning environments, maker spaces, active-learning classrooms, event and gallery spaces, and student lounges and co-working spaces, as well as the Student Success Center. We look forward to sharing more about the future of the Innovation Lab with our OGS family. 

Welcome new S&T cabinet members

We are delighted to introduce you to Colin Potts, a dynamic leader and S&T’s new provost and executive vice chancellor of academic affairs. Potts joined S&T this summer after a 30-year career at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was vice provost for undergraduate education and a professor of interactive computing. At Georgia Tech, Potts managed programs that governed the entire undergraduate student experience and increased retention and graduation rates. He now oversees S&T’s academic programs and support, enrollment management, and global learning operations.

Also joining the cabinet is Beth Concepción, vice provost for corporate and professional education, a new role responsible for strategic outreach to professionals to build S&T’s brand in distance and in-person modes. She joins S&T from Oglethorpe University, where she was assistant provost for strategic engagement in the Hammack School of Business. And our new vice chancellor of finance and operations, Alysha M. O’Neil, joined S&T in July from the University of Missouri-Columbia following Cuba Plain’s retirement. O’Neil oversees S&T’s budgeting, planning, business operations and environmental management functions, and the campus’s grounds, facilities services, human resources and university police. 

OGS scholarship donors honor inspiring parents

Andrew, EE’82, MS EE’83, and Lisa Bonnot, PetE’85, recently established a scholarship to honor the life and legacy of Lisa’s parents, the late Charles D. “Chuck” and Joan Sum of St. Louis. As a first-generation college student and one of five children, Lisa notes her parents did not have the opportunity to attend college. Yet through their encouragement, the Sums managed to see all their children through parochial school and on to becoming college graduates. The scholarship will help S&T engineering students who are members of Lisa’s sorority, the Eta Kappa Chapter of Chi Omega, which meant a great deal to her as a student. 

First Global Engineering scholarships funded by OGS members

Thanks to the generosity of OGS members Kay and Willard Jenkins, ME’59, future engineers in S&T’s global engineering program will soon have access to support for the costs of internships and studying abroad. Their newly endowed scholarship for global engineering students will help offset travel and housing expenses during the program’s required year of study in France or Spain. In his 35-year career with John Deere, Jenkins spent several years in Germany, which helped him see how the futures of many will be globally based. “Kay and I want to play our small role in developing that vision in S&T’s engineering students,” says Jenkins.

S&T researcher part of $2.5 million cyberinfrastructure grant

Sajal Das, the Daniel St. Clair Endowed Chair of Computer Science at S&T, is collaborating with researchers from the University of Oregon and the University of North Texas on a $2.5 million project funded by the National Science Foundation. Through the “Cyberstructure for Accelerating Innovation in Dynamic Networks,” or CANDY project, the researchers are developing a method to update dynamic networks that they say is the first scalable, expandable and user-friendly solution to analyze who is using a network, where they are, and what information and channels they access. S&T’s Experimental Mine will be used as one of the case studies to analyze complex communication networks. Read more

Both new and established OGS members share a purpose of sustaining the excellence that has defined our university since 1870.  We look forward to celebrating our progress with you and our OGS circle of friends this coming June. Please watch for an invitation with more details. If you have questions, please contact Sarah Jones at jonessarah@mst.edu or 573-341-6359.  

Order of the Golden Shillelagh

1100 N. Pine St., Rolla, MO 65409 | 573-341-6359

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