Feature: Spartan Scholarship Challenge Building Momentum

Spartans from coast to coast are responding to MSU’s scholarship challenge, a way to leverage donations that will help MSU achieve its mission in the face of lessening state support.

More than $1 million has been raised to create more than 18 undergraduate scholarships in the newly launched Spartan Scholarship Challenge.  Just begun in the waning months of 2009, the challenge leverages part of a $10 million anonymous gift in a novel matching program that already has proven popular with alumni and friends of MSU.

For James (Jim) Weigand, MBA ’78, and Tawnya Rowden, ’73, ’86, it was a chance to stretch their dollars and support in a long held personal commitment to direct their giving toward helping students.  The couple has previously funded a number of scholarships at MSU and other institutions, but this was the first time their gift was matched. 

In the Spartan Scholarship Challenge, for every two dollars a donor gives to establish a new scholarship endowment, one dollar will be designated from a $7 million portion of an anonymous $10 million gift to MSU.  Jim and Tawnya used the opportunity to create an endowed scholarship in honor of Jim’s father, William R. Weigand.

The Spartan Scholarship Challenge has struck a chord with many MSUAA regional alumni clubs that are using the opportunity to dramatically increase their scholarship support. 

Among the first to step up to the challenge was the MSU Alumni Club of Metro Chicago.  According to Club President Monika Hinterman, ’03, the challenge fell directly in line with one of the club’s driving goals: to provide deserving young Spartans with the opportunity for a quality education by easing some of the financial burden.  Recognizing the difficulty students face in affording a college education, particularly when out-of-state, the club hopes to one day provide Chicago-area students with full-ride scholarships. 

“Scholarships—even partial scholarships—help promote the university and allow students and their families to focus on the college experience as a whole, instead of worrying about how to pay for it,” she says.  “We felt MSU’s challenge could breathe new life into our club’s fundraising goals, and it has.”

All of this year’s proceeds from the club’s signature SpartyBall event will go toward creating a club Spartan Scholarship.  The popular event is an elegant evening that includes a strolling dinner, cocktails and live music, highlighted by a sophisticated silent auction which has been pinnacle to the club’s fundraising efforts.  Knowing that those dollars are going even further this year inspired one of the club’s members, Richard Metzler, ’63,to make a pledge to match the first $10,000 that SpartyBall yields.  Coupled with the match from the Spartan Scholarship Challenge, Metzler’s pledge boosts the club to the enviable position of being able to turn $10,000 from the 2010 SpartyBall into $30,000—or more—for a newly endowed club scholarship.

A gift from a member has also spearheaded efforts of the Twin Cities (Minnesota) MSUAA Club to establish a Spartan Scholarship.  Glenn Corliss, ’63, ’67, made an appeal to fellow club members to utilize the challenge to create a new endowed scholarship by Spring 2010 so that a freshman student can benefit by next fall.  He gave the club a significant head start with his own pledge of $5,000. 

“There is more to an alumni club than to cheer on our teams,” Glenn says.  “It is also very important to help students, especially at this time of great need.”

The MSU Orange County Alumni Club in Southern California may be a long way from East Lansing, but its endowed student scholarship fund supported 13 MSU students this academic year.  The club embraced the Spartan Scholarship Challenge as a way to grow their scholarships and to honor one of their own.  Judith C. (JC) Haefner, ’63, was a lifelong supporter of the academic and athletic life of MSU, noted Club President Aimee Bolen, ’02.  She also was an active board member with the club for almost a decade and a tireless supporter of all the club’s efforts before her passing last year.  The JC Haefner Spartan Scholarship Challenge will enable the club to support an additional student.

“When the club first started, our goal was to give students a large enough scholarship to make out-of-state tuition more manageable,” Aimee says.  “The students today are our future and it is important for us to invest in them.  As Spartan alumni, we take great pride in helping to create the next generation of Spartan alumni.”

Jeff Hawkins, ’90, president of the MSUAA club of Houston, TX, sees the Spartan Scholarship Challenge serving as a catalyst not only to create the club’s first endowed scholarship, but also to build the club’s membership and support.  He noted his club has rallied around the goal and that they are making more connections than ever with area Spartans and donors.  The club will use the proceeds from auctioning a suite by Houston Astro’s owner and Spartan Drayton McLane, Jr., MBA ’59.  Several dinner events are also in the works.

“This program lays out an easily obtainable goal,” Jeff says.  “Financially, we are already halfway there, and we are just out of the gate.”

With their charter just a year old, the Midland County Michigan MSUAA Club was fast on the heels of the Spartan Scholarship Challenge announcement.  “The timing was perfect,” says Judyth Peterson, ’81, club president.  “We knew we wanted to establish a scholarship and this opportunity was just too good to pass up.”  

The young club sponsored their first golf outing last spring, netting $6,000.  Plans already are underway to utilize the event for the scholarship challenge in addition to donations from alumni throughout the county.   The opportunity to stretch their donations has been a hit with many, according to Peterson. 

“It is just what good Spartans do,” she says.  “If there are students in need in our county who want to go to MSU, then by golly, we want to help them.”

Support for the challenge has also come from alumni within the university.  This past fall, as MSU faced reductions in state funding, more than 130 faculty and staff donated their annual raises back to the university to support student scholarships.  Five alumni friends took this a step further by pledging to give back their raises for several years while also capitalizing on the matching opportunity.

“Once a family budgets for setting aside an annual raise, it’s fairly easy to continue that allocation for additional years,” according to Jeff Kacos, ’71, who serves as MSU’s director of Campus Planning and Administration.  “When my friend and colleague, Bill Latta, approached me, I thought it was a wonderful idea.” 

Wives were consulted and the MSU Leadership Endowment for the Spartan Scholarship Challenge was created through gifts from Bill, ’73, ’75, ’83, and Mary Ann, ’74, Latta; Bill, ’89, and Cindy, ’89, Beekman; David Brower, ’69, ’70; David, ’75, ’80, and Debra ’77, Gift; and Jeff, ’71, and Phyllis Kacos.

Many others from within the university have also taken part in the challenge.

Bob and Reggie Noto established the Noto Spartan Scholarship Challenge to celebrate Bob’s 15 years as MSU’s vice president for Legal Affairs and 30 years as a higher education attorney.  A preference for College of Music students was a natural fit for the Notos, who have made previous donations to benefit MSU music students and have made music education a family priority.

“We’ve been deeply impressed by the faculty and student performances we’ve attended,” Bob says.  “Most important, helping the College of Music attract the best students is critical to public recognition of MSU’s commitment to excellence in the arts and humanities, a necessary component of the university’s success, central to its ability to bring the most talented faculty, students, and staff—whatever their disciplines—to MSU.”  

To students at MSU, there is no more important help than the gift of a scholarship.   Scholarships ease the financial burden for students who otherwise might not have been able to afford the opportunity.  MSU senior Jeremy Blaney came to MSU after four years in military service and noted he was humbled to receive a scholarship.  “The gift of a scholarship is life-changing and transformative,” he says.  “A Spartan can really change another Spartan’s life, who in turn could change another Spartan’s life…making it possible for one Spartan to really change the world.”  Watch a video about Jeremy at givingto.msu.edu/ssc/testimonials.cfm.

For more information on creating an endowed Spartan Scholarship or to make a gift online, go to the Spartan Scholarship Challenge Web site at givingto.msu.edu/ssc.