Volume 30 · Number 1 · Fall 2012
Campaign: 8 ways (out of thousands) to help a student
Scholarships support students like Becky Xu Hua Fu ’12, winner of the 2012 Ronald and Lydia Baskin Research Award. (Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)
Students arriving at UC Davis for the 2012–13 academic year have a fast growing team of supporters. To date, 14,466 donors have given more than $108 million through The Campaign for UC Davis to fund 1,267 scholarships, fellowships, awards and activities for undergraduate and graduate students. With enrollment totaling nearly 33,000, student support is a top campaign priority. Here are eight recent examples of ways donors are helping UC Davis students:
1 The Boyd Family Foundation pledged $300,000 to endow four undergraduate student scholarships, which will be awarded to Sacramento City Unified School District graduates to attend UC Davis. The foundation also made a gift of $100,000 for student scholarship support in 2000. The first recipient of the UC Davis Boyd Scholarship is John F. Kennedy High School graduate Jean Won Liu. Liu is the first member of her family to attend college and will be majoring in civil engineering. The Boyd Foundation chose to give to UC Davis because of its proximity to Sacramento and its connection to Eugene and Kathryn Boyd — two former prominent Sacramento residents whose estate assets fund these scholarships.
2 Lydia Baskin gave a gift of $5,000 to further support the Ronald and Lydia Baskin Research Award, which recognizes one graduating senior each year for excellence in research in the biological sciences. Baskin created the award in 2006 with her late husband, Ronald J. Baskin, a professor emeritus of molecular and cellular biology. Becky Xu Hua Fu received the 2012 award for her research in molecular and cellular biology.
3 SAFE Credit Union recently made a $150,000 five-year pledge to support UC Davis Medical Student Scholarships, Geriatrics/Palliative Care Fellowships and the Mini-Medical School. This gift will help offset the cost of training five future palliative care specialists each year. SAFE also supports the UC Davis Mini-Medical School, a six-week program designed to increase community awareness about healthy aging and empower people age 50 and older to become more engaged in their own health and medical care. (For more information about the UC Davis Mini-Medical School, visit ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/minimed.) Additionally, the credit union supports a Medical Student Scholarship Endowment and has given out two annual $5,000 Medical Student Scholarships every year since 2007.
Scholarships are helping the healthcare leaders of tomorrow pursue an education at UC Davis School of Medicine.
(TJ Ushing/UC Davis)
4 Pacific Coast Producers, a large cooperative food processing company, made a five-year pledge of $50,000 to the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The gift will help maintain a food processing pilot plant and provide vital ongoing support to graduate students in Food Science and Technology. These students apply a fundamental understanding of biological, chemical, physical and behavioral sciences to the processing, preservation, quality evaluation, public health aspects and utilization of foods.
5 Professor Emeritus Jerry Suran and his wife, Helen, continued their annual support of the Jerome J. and Helen S. Suran Fellowships in the Graduate School of Management with a gift of $5,000. These fellowships recognize and support students in good academic standing across the business school’s three MBA programs — an MBA student, a Sacramento MBA student, and a Bay Area MBA student.
6 The couple also gave $100,000 to support the Arthur and Julia Suran Endowed Scholarship in the College of Engineering. This undergraduate scholarship was made to honor Jerry Suran’s parents, Arthur and Julia, and is awarded annually to students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Jerry is a member of the College of Engineering Dean’s Executive Committee and both Jerry and Helen will receive Distinguished Service Medals during the College of Engineering’s 50th Anniversary Awards Gala on Oct. 13.
7 Sean Owens, a faculty member in the School of Veterinary Medicine, and his family established the J. William Owens Memorial Scholarship, which is awarded to a veterinary student who is a single parent. The recipient this year was Michelle Dimora ’15, who received an award of $2,600.
8 Anthony Barcellos, Ph.D. ’05, a long-time mathematics professor at American River College, created a new scholarship endowment to support one or more students enrolled in the doctoral program at the School of Education, with an emphasis on math educators. In making the gift, Barcellos said, “The UC Davis School of Education has enriched my personal and professional life, having given me the opportunity to delve into the wonderful complexities of teaching and learning. I am pleased to have this opportunity to give something back to the school by encouraging its future graduate students.”
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