Elevating S&T, STEM Outreach, Economic Impact

Friday, October 11, 2024

Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

Four years ago this week, one of America’s foremost builders bestowed the largest giftupon our university – the largest gift to any institution in the history of our state, and the fifth largest to any public university in the country. His supplementary biographical details aside, Fred Kummer was a visionary big thinker and a lifetime rainmaker. Together with his architect wife, June, they built 1,012 hospitals in all 50 states, dozens of the largest hotels, and numerous other structural masterpieces — all in distinctive styles and grand manners.

What motivates philanthropists, large and small, to give back with the desire to promote the welfare of others? What motivates people like billionaire Charles Feeney, who “traveled only in coach, carried reading material in a plastic bag, wore a $10 watch and lived in a two-bedroom apartment” to anonymously give more than $8 billion in philanthropic contributions to charities and educational organizations? Famously, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates considered Mr. Feeney as their hero and, in the words of Mr. Buffett, “… he should be everybody’s hero.”

The common characteristic among these generous visionaries is evident: they give freely with the desire to help the less fortunate and to promote the welfare of others. Here at S&T, the Kummer gift has done exactly that as it has enabled us to envision an ambitious — very ambitious — plan to help our students and, in the process, transform our university according to the Kummer Mandate: Elevate S&T, provide broad STEM outreach and ensure economic development.

While the Kummers’ monetary support has been instrumental for achieving many of our objectives, our main focus has been ensuring lasting change. To this end, we have established the Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development, created the Manufacture Missouri Ecosystem, and established four Kummer Institute Centers in our pillar areas, to highlight a few of the major initiatives.

Further, we have provided scholarships to 1,300 undergraduate Kummer Vanguard Scholars, fully supported nearly 50 doctoral fellows, recruited endowed research and teaching professors and reached out to over 11,000 K-12 students. This effort is unrivaled in the history of S&T and many other public and private universities.

Thanks to the Kummer Center for STEM Education and the center’s STEM mobiles, we have been able to take S&T to the communities far beyond our borders, while over 5,000 pre-college students visited the campus during the past academic year. The center’s biggest yearly undertaking is our summer camps, where students experience the STEM fields in fun and meaningful ways. This year, we welcomed over 1,000 students from mostly underserved districts to one or more of 28 camps and provided scholarships to all who needed support.

As our Kummer initiatives and programs highlight, we are on the right trajectory in fulfilling the vision of our innovative donors. Fred encouraged us all to think big, and he and June backed it up with the largest charitable gift in Missouri history. Fred and June have significantly raised our sights and our supporters’ confidence in our future. The Kummer Institute that their generosity created has unlimited potential to improve lives through STEM outreach and education, and his inspiration remains the responsibility of all of us who serve here.

To Fred and June, I say you have made a tremendous difference, and we look forward to fulfilling your wishes in perpetuity in accordance with your mandate of elevating Missouri S&T, providing broad STEM outreach and ensuring economic impact.

Warmly,

-Mo.

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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu