Gifts to WMU on pace to exceed last year's record
Dec. 9, 2001
KALAMAZOO -- Western Michigan University received gifts totaling more than $3.5 million during October and November, which puts the University on a pace to exceed last year's record of $18.4 million in gifts.
The 2001-02 gift receipts for July through November are $185,886 ahead of the amount received during the same five months one year ago, or about 3 percent ahead of the 2000-01 fiscal year. More than one-half of the five-month gift total of $6,030,444 was received during October and November.
According to a report presented to the WMU Board of Trustees at its Dec. 7 meeting, gifts received by the WMU Foundation during the 2001-02 fiscal year totaled $5,549,589 through Nov. 30. An additional $480,855 in gifts was received by the Paper Technology Foundation, which supports the internationally known paper programs at WMU. All gifts to Western Michigan University are received through these two foundations.
Among the larger gifts received during October and November were two given anonymously. An anonymous gift of $2,040,000 was given to support construction of a new building for the Department of Art. Another $10,900 was given to support the Plaza Arts Circle's Young Concert Artist Series at WMU.
The final distribution of $18,000 was received from the estate of Samuel K. Smart Jr. Smart earned two degrees in education from WMU, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1949 and a master's degree in 1956. The Benton Harbor, Mich., resident died in 1994. Smart's estate has distributed a total of $136,488 through the WMU Foundation to fund the Samuel K. Smart Scholarship in the College of Education.
WMU received $10,000 from Betty J. Cinq-Mars of Kalamazoo to fund the Cinq-Mars Scholarship in the Haworth College of Business. Cinq-Mars received an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and earned an MBA from WMU.
Frederick J. Hirt, recently of Kalamazoo and now residing in Pennsylvania, contributed $10,000 to the Cynthia Wrazien-Hirt Scholarship in the WMU Haworth College of Business. The scholarship is named in memory of Hirt's late wife, who died at age 50 in March 2000. Cynthia Wrazien-Hirt earned an MBA from the Haworth College of Business in 1984.
Media contact: Thom Myers, 269 387-8400, thomas.myers@wmich.edu