By Robert S. Nelsen
With the beginning of a new calendar year – and a new semester – has come exciting news about the commitment and generosity of some very good friends who have answered the call to help us create an amazing new emerging research university in South Texas…an institution that now has a name, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
From the time Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa shared his bold vision for a new university for the Valley – a university that would be a “Gateway to the Americas” – alumni and friends from near and far have opened their hearts to support this historic initiative, and now more and more are beginning to open their wallets, as well.
Just in the last few weeks, we have received gifts to endow three new professorships and several scholarship funds, including one for the new medical school, from individuals who understand the importance private philanthropy will be to the success of UTRGV.
They understand that it will take more than legislative appropriations and allocations from the Permanent University Fund to build an emerging research university; they understand that it will take privately funded endowed chairs and professorships to recruit and retain the most outstanding faculty; they understand that many of the young people of the Rio Grande Valley who dream of becoming doctors will need help, especially in the form of scholarships, to make those dreams a reality.
Let me tell you about a few of our generous benefactors who have already stepped up to the plate and established endowments that will benefit the new university in perpetuity:
Thanks to the recommendation and generosity of Lee Aaronson of Austin, owner of Lacks Valley Stores, Ltd., and his sisters Carolyn and Vicki, two professorships are being funded by the Myles and Sylvia Aaronson Family Fund of the Houston Jewish Community Foundation. The Lacks Valley Stores Endowed Professorship for the Advancement of South Texas Diabetes Research and the Myles and Sylvia Aaronson Professorship for the Center of Excellence in STEM Education have been created through a $250,000 gift that also qualifies for a 50 percent match from the UT System Research Incentive Program for the Comprehensive University (UTrip – CU). While the gift will support the work of the faculty members selected for the professorships, and the matching funds will be used to buy the equipment to set up their labs. Both professorships are being established in memory of Lee’s father Myles and mother Sylvia, who was a longtime member and vice chair of the UTPA Foundation Board of Trustees.
The third professorship is being created through a wonderful gift of $100,000 from Dr. Carlos Manrique de Lara, a well-known Valley ophthalmologist, and his wife Stephanie, who have become good friends to UT Pan American and are founding members of the President’s Circle. The Dr. Carlos and Stephanie Manrique de Lara Endowed Professorship in Science will benefit UT Pan Am’s College of Science and Mathematics, and eventually its successor academic unit at UTRGV. Carlos and Stephanie also gave $10,000 to establish the Helena Urbina Manrique de Lara Endowed Scholarship in Science.
Another endowed scholarship fund has been created for the new medical school through the generosity of a young UT Pan Am alumnus who has chosen to remain anonymous but who wanted to be among the first to step forward to support the new medical school that will be part of UTRGV.
I am so grateful to all of these wonderful and generous friends who have joined the “vanguard of giving” for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. As Chancellor Cigarroa reiterated during a visit to campus just last week, philanthropy will be vital to its success. If you want to know more about how to make a gift to the new university, Vice President for University Advancement Veronica Gonzales is primed and ready to answer your questions. Just give her a call at (956) 665-5301 or email her at gonzalesv@utpa.edu.
Y como siempre, mano a mano, ¡seguímos adelante!
Robert S. Nelsen is the President of The University of Texas-Pan American. TBB
