Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday! Happy Founders Day!

Yesterday, we celebrated our 154th Founders Day, commemorating Gustavus Duncan’s first day of class on Nov. 6, 154 years ago. Since that defining moment, our university has had a journey of evolution and growth like few others from its roots as Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (MSM), through four decades as the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR), and now for nearly 20 years as Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T). At every stage of its growth, S&T has benefited from our alumni who have championed innovative new dimensions to evolve our university. The institution evolved from a school of mines to an engineering school to a university in 1964 with the addition of social sciences, business sciences, life sciences and biotechnology. Rainmaker alumni with high levels of confidence in our mission, and matching levels of affinity, have enabled our “new” beginnings commensurate with the technological, social, entrepreneurial and business needs of society. And every year, during our Founders Day celebrations, we recognize and highlight the impact of our most devoted alumni — our rainmakers.

This past week, a devoted alumnus, Dennis Jaggi, and his wife Janet, bestowed a transformational gift to the university to establish the Dennis and Janet Jaggi School of Business. As we develop plans to establish our school of business, we will work with Dennis and Janet to ensure alignment with their vision as we provide our graduates with skills to face complex business situations. The skills that are needed to address real-world challenges that span not only engineering, science and technology, but also bigger-picture parameters like supply chain, human resource needs, geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions facing global corporations.

Our new Jaggi School of Business will provide our graduates with pivoting perspectives to be able to clarify their career goals and to develop a sharper sense of how to make business savvy decisions. Given that S&T is predominantly an institute of technology, our new business programs will be highly quantitative and business of technology focused.

The Jaggis’ transformational gift follows a rich tradition of giving that started with our very earliest graduates like Daniel C. Jackling, Karl F. Hasselmann and Vachel Harry McNutt, to our more contemporary generous alumni like, Fred S. Kummer Jr., Gary Havener, Bipin Doshi, Tim Bradley, Jim Bertelsmeyer, and now Dennis Jaggi, to name just a few.

To Dennis and Janet Jaggi, to all our generous rainmakers, today following our Founders Day, I say THANK YOU. Thank you for believing in our vision and thank you for helping us make that vision our reality. You graduated and left the campus for the bigger world years ago but never left the university! And for that we are grateful. 

Many of us stand on the diving board with the good intention of taking a leap of faith, but you took the plunge to support your alma mater in significant and generous ways and joined other rainmakers already in the water. We are grateful for your encouragement and for inspiring us here at S&T as well as generations of S&T Miners to believe in themselves. And thank you for enabling all of us to turn that belief into reality.

Warmly,

-Mo.
 
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• Bach Society of Saint Louis to perform at S&T Nov. 15

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

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