A $5.5 million gift commitment from the MSU Federal Credit Union is set to unleash some of the best MSU has to offer to benefit individuals throughout Michigan.
The areas supported are some of the most public-friendly at the university, including the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Wharton Center for Performing Arts, and WKAR, as well as six colleges—Arts & Letters, Communication Arts & Sciences, Eli Broad College of Business, Music, Residential College in the Arts & Humanities, and Social Science—and the first Science Gallery Lab program in the U.S.
The new Science Gallery Lab Detroit–East Lansing is one of the most visible of the new initiatives and will enable MSU to develop concepts, programming, and exhibits to be shared throughout Detroit and Southeast Michigan. The lab is part of Science Gallery International Network to encourage public engagement with science.
The gift will also enable the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU to expand across Grand River Avenue, providing increased access and research for the museum’s 7,500-piece permanent collection. The extension of the museum will provide additional exhibition spaces for its collection and a research center focused on the museum of tomorrow. The collection will serve as an access point to education and research and will include a study center and cases for visiting instructors, students, and researchers to integrate the collection into teaching and learning.
The MSUFCU’s gift also will create new programs designed to connect individuals, businesses, and other organizations to MSU resources for learning and enrichment, including:
- student-led media teams to assist resource-strapped nonprofits,
- a Customer Experience and Relationship Marketing Initiative,
- financial literacy training,
- expansion of WKAR’s educational programming for children,
- programs to promote diversity and inclusion, and
- multiple initiatives in the performing and visual arts and music.
“Both MSU and the MSUFCU are committed to helping people achieve their dreams,” says April Clobes, president and chief executive officer for MSUFCU. “We are proud to support MSU’s efforts that help ensure that communities are alive with arts and education, and are places where people can learn and thrive.”
The gift places the MSUFCU among the top 20 donors to MSU’s Empower Extraordinary campaign. Once the gift commitment is completed, the cumulative support for MSU from the MSUFCU will total nearly $20 million.
The $5.5 million gift is the MSUFCU’s second in the campaign. A previous $3 million gift, made during the silent phase of the campaign in 2013, created three new endowments: the MSUFCU Broadway Series at Wharton Center, the MSUFCU Jazz Studies Visiting Artist program, and the MSUFCU Artist Studio Series at the Broad MSU. The endowments, now fully funded, have allowed MSU to expand programs so that thousands of students and community members experience the arts and learn from world-renowned performers, including jazz musicians, Broadway stars, and contemporary artists.
The MSUFCU has a positive impact on the MSU community every year through annual support, which averages $700,000 for programs across the university.
The MSUFCU, the world’s largest university-based credit union, offers a full range of personal and business-related financial services to MSU and Oakland University faculty, staff, students, alumni, and their families worldwide, in addition to a variety of select employee groups. Founded in 1937 by MSU professors, MSUFCU has 18 branches, over 240,000 members, more than $3.64 billion in assets, and over 760 employees.