The WSU Foundation is created as a “separate foundation of a charitable and educational nature, organized exclusively to serve the needs of WSU and manage the private support given it.” By 2015, the Foundation will have raised over 1.3 billion dollars.
Charles H. Drake was a popular, well-respected professor at Washington State University for 36 years. His introductory class in bacteriology attracted many non-science majors as well as students preparing for careers in health care. In his lectures, he displayed an acute sense of humor and love of puns. In 1989, the Drakes created a trust to provide assistance for WSU graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in microbial ecology. He was 86 when he died on May 20, 2002 in Pullman.
In the aftermath of a devastating January earthquake in Haiti, WSU students raise funds in a variety of ways to support the people impacted during the natural disaster.
Chris Bruce, the director for Washington State University’s museum of art, travels to Seattle in late February to help sort out the disposition of the one of the most significant art donations in Washington State history – that of Safeco Insurance’s gift of more than 800 artworks.
Robert Nilan, WSU professor emeritus and former College of Sciences dean, received the WSU President’s Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service. Nilan is a leading international authority on barley genetics who came to WSU in 1951 as an agronomist and geneticist. While at WSU he served as chair of genetics, and his worldwide recognition as a plant geneticist earned him an appointment to the Danish Academy of Science. He trained more than 75 graduate students during his career at WSU and, as dean, he oversaw development of programs in statistics, environmental science and plant physiology; laboratories in bio-analysis and biotechnology; and centers of electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance.
Nilan and his wife Winona have given generously to the arts and sciences at WSU. Attracting students to WSU’s Department of Genetics and Cell Biology was at the center of their decision to create the Robert A. and Winona P. Nilan Graduate Fellowship in Genetics.
WSU received nearly $156 million in new research grant awards during the 2007-08 fiscal year, up about 16 percent from the previous year.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grants WSU $25 million to help construct the $35 million building that will become the centerpiece in the WSU School for Global Animal Health. This is the largest grant in the history of WSU.
Early in 2005, students, faculty, and staff participated in relief efforts for Asian countries struck by a tsunami. Later, efforts took place for victims of two hurricanes which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast. WSU admitted some students displaced by the hurricanes and more than 7,000 Backpacks for Hope, filled with school supplies, were collected for school students in the affected areas.
As part of WSU’s commitment to supporting Pullman, the WSU Foundation moved its offices from campus to downtown’s new Pullman Town Centre. The Foundation raised more than $48.5 million, the second highest fund-raising total in its history.
“Common Ground,” a three-piece acrylic-on-canvas painting celebrating diversity at WSU, was dedicated in the Compton Union Building. WSU colleges and administrative units donated funds for the mural by artist Katrin Wiese, Riverside, Calif.
Campaign WSU passes $200 million mark eight months before its scheduled end. In 1997 the seven-year Campaign WSU, the university’s first comprehensive fundraising effort, concluded with final total of $275.4 million, surpassing its original $250 million goal. Supporting WSU’s vision to be one of the top public universities in the nation, the money raised benefited scholarships, teaching and research programs, student programs, and learning initiatives statewide.
The Golden Grads of 1945 donated a grand piano to WSU as a class gift. It was dedicated during a concert in the Rotunda of the Terrell Library.
Necia Bennett Huntley (’35) and husband Elmer C. Huntley left a 890-acre wheat ranch in Thornton, Washington to WSU. The goal of the ranch was funding scholarships.
The Boeing Company donated $7 million to WSU- the largest private gift to date.
In the ’91-’92 fiscal year, donors gifted WSU with a then-record $33 million in grants and gifts. This is up from the previous year’s record of $26 million, and it would in turn be topped the following year when that year’s gifts tallied $45 million.
From student to philanthropic leader, Connie Kravas (’74), doctoral graduate in education administration and supervision, becomes director of development. In 1980, she was named executive director of development and WSU Foundation president. She became University Advancement vice president in 1997, after leading the highly successful Campaign WSU, the university’s first comprehensive fund-raising effort. Over a seven-year period, ending in 1997, Campaign WSU raised more than $275 million. It increased the university’s scholarship endowment, established endowed professorships to attract and retain top faculty, and provided modern equipment for teaching and research.
The Washington State University Foundation is created to “promote, accept, and maximize private support for programs, initiatives, and properties of Washington State University and its regional campuses” as well as manage, invest and steward the assets entrusted to it by WSU and alumni, friends, and donors.
By 1987, private giving to the university through WSU Foundation surpassed $9 million. Major gifts included Distinguished Professorships from the Kennedy family of Seattle and from five high-tech companies; $1 million from the Boeing Company and $1 million in computer equipment from AT&T.
Regent Michael Dederer becomes Board of Regents President for a third time. Dederer, a Seattle philanthropist and president of the Seattle Fur Exchange, was originally appointed in 1955 to fill the unexpired term of John C. Scott, who resigned. Dederer started as a janitor at the Seattle Fur Exchange in 1922, and just 17 years later was president of a rapidly growing fur empire. In public service, Dederer not only served as first member, then president of the WSU Board of Regents, but he was also a regent for Pacific Lutheran University and headed the WSU Foundation. Dederer died on June 24, 1995.
Nearly 14 years after his death, President Holland’s final estate of $410,000 was gifted to WSU. Two weeks later, the John I. and Orpha Preissner estate of $300,000 is also gifted to the school.
Weldon B. “Hoot” Gibson graduates with a B.A. in Economics. Gibson attended WSC with the help of his Uncle, Arthur “Buck” Bailey, and was a member of the football team and the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. After graduating from WSC, Gibson studied at the Stanford Graduate School of Business receiving an MBA in 1940 and a Ph.D. in 1950. Gibson was a long-time executive at the Stanford Research Institute from 1947 until 1988. He earned the Legion of Merit in 1946, Commander of the British Empire in 1947, and the Washington State University Distinguished Alumni Award for his role in creating the Washington State University Foundation.
WSU launches the largest fundraising effort in its history: a $1 billion effort designed to confirm WSU as a leading land grant institution.
The Board of Regents selects V. Lane Rawlins to serve as the ninth president of WSU. He took office after serving as the president at University of Memphis. Rawlins was the first WSU faculty member to become president. He joined the economics faculty in 1968, later served as chair of the department of economics, and was WSU vice provost from 1982-86.
President Rawlins’ administration is best known for strengthening the WSU-UW relationship, giving the WSU branch campuses more autonomy, establishing December commencement, and Academic Showcase. He served as president until June 2007.
WSU wins a friendly fundraising competition with the University of Washington. As a result, Seattle’s Space Needle roof got a crimson and gray paint job.
The 7,212 ton liberty ship E.A. Bryan, named after the former WSC president and funded by Washington State 4-H Club members, explodes while workers load it with explosives. The ship had been dedicated to former 4-H Club members who were then serving in the War.
On July 17, 1944, the E.A. Bryan and the Quinalt Victory were moored across from each other at the Port Chicago Naval Base, in the San Francisco Bay. They were being loaded with explosives when something exploded; pieces of the Quinalt Victory were recovered but the E.A. Bryan was effectively vaporized. There had been an estimated 4,600 tons of explosives and ammunition on the E.A. Bryan when it detonated.
Paul Allen, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, attended WSU and became a member of Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. He dropped out of school to work for Honeywell in Boston a couple years after enrolling. In 1975 Allen co-founds Microsoft with childhood friend Bill Gates in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Fire consumed half of the wooden bleachers at Rogers Field, along with the football and track and field facility. The fire was later determined to be arson. In 1971, $1 million was raised in three months to rebuild the football stadium, which was completed and dedicated in 1972 for former governor Clarence D. Martin.
In November of 1893, Board of Regents chair Charles R. Conner persuades the state and others to donate their exhibits from the Chicago World’s Fair to the fledgling Washington Agricultural College. In 1914, the museum is officially named after Conner. As the collection evolves in the following years it focuses on vertebrate mammals. Now housed in Abelson Hall, the Conner Museum displays 700 specimens, with more than 65,000 in its research library.
