Dean’s Corner: Fifty dollars for 50 years!

Last spring semester, I wrote to you that the fall 2014 semester would begin our celebration and recognition of our 50th Birthday. Our slogan is “Fifty dollars for 50 years!” during this milestone. I am asking that you seriously consider donating at least $50 to the Ron MacQuarrie Graduate Fellowship Fund to support graduate student scholarships. Two years ago, an endowed fund was created to honor former Dean Ron MacQuarrie. I am asking your assistance in enhancing and building upon that endowment to support graduate students over the next 50 years. Faculty, alumni, staff, and current students, can give to this program.

In recognition of this event, we have developed the School of Graduate Studies “Tree of Knowledge.” If you donate at least $50, your name will be added in the form of a leaf to this tree that will adorn a wall in the graduate school. Donations of $50 to $499 will have your name engraved on a bronze leaf, $500 to $4,999 is a silver leaf, and $5,000 to $9,999 earns the generous donor a gold leaf.  Gifts greater than $10,000 will have their names engraved on a platinum leaf. We are also looking for larger donations to name the entire tree —$15,000 gets the tree named after you or your organization. For those graduates who received generous fellowship support in the past, we are suggesting $500. We would like to raise $20,000 in honor of this milestone to add to the endowment.

I know that many of you are charitable in nature and may have other causes that are close to your heart but ask for you to mindfully consider giving to ensure a bright future for UMKC students. In the end, we only give what we can and that is why I am reaching out to the majority of you to consider donating $50 to the Ron MacQuarrie Graduate Fellowship Fund for our celebration!

As we enter our next 50 years, the School of Graduate Studies has been soliciting firms and organizations after which we will name our awards, such as the Outstanding Dissertation Award. If a firm donates $3,000 for example, there will be 3 years of $1,000 Outstanding Dissertation awards named after them awarded to students. We are also soliciting awards for Distinguished Thesis, Outstanding PhD Faculty members, and Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistants.

You can see this is a new day for the School as we reach out to our faculty, staff, students, and alumni to help celebrate this milestone and provide financial support for UMKC graduate students through the Ron MacQuarrie Graduate Fellowship Fund.  We will be having an Open House for students, faculty, staff and alumni on Friday, September 12, 2014 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm in the School of Graduate Studies located on the 3rd floor of the Administration Building. Please RSVP to UMKCSGS@umkc.edu by September 9th and we look forward to seeing you soon. Also, mark your calendars for October 30, 2014, from 7 to 9 pm at Snow and Company, as we will be having an evening called “Are You Smarter Than a UMKC Graduate Student?” as a fun fundraiser!  Please attend and help us celebrate.

Follow this link to see a short video about our 50th anniversary: http://sgs.umkc.edu/celebrating-50-years/

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