Enid-based Continental Resources gives $1 million to create petroleum engineering chair at OSU
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
With available matches, full impact of gift is $4 million
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Enid-based Continental Resources is an independent oil and natural gas exploration
and production company with operations in the Rocky Mountain, Mid-Continent and Gulf
Coast regions of the United States. Harold Hamm is chairman and CEO of Continental
Resources.
“This tremendous gift from a pioneering Oklahoma energy company will greatly boost
Oklahoma State University’s petroleum engineering efforts by creating an important
faculty chair position,” said OSU President Burns Hargis. “We sincerely appreciate
Harold Hamm and the entire Continental Resources team for this generous and significant
gift.”
In order to take full advantage of the state’s dollar-for-dollar match, and make the
most significant impact on OSU academics, Continental Resources made the gift prior
to the July 1 change in the state’s endowed chair matching program.
“We are very pleased to support the petroleum option in the engineering program.
In my 40-year career, I cannot remember a more exciting time to be working in the
oil and gas industry. Career opportunities have never been better for bright, hard-working
technical students,” said Hamm, who in 1967 at age 22 founded the company that would
become Continental Resources.
The gift will create the Continental Resources Chair in Petroleum Engineering. With
this type of endowment, OSU will be able to recruit one of the most skilled and eminent
educators and researchers in the country to its College of Engineering, Architecture
and Technology.
“The response to the development of our new interdisciplinary thrust in petroleum
engineering has been overwhelming”, said Karl Reid, Dean of the College of Engineering,
Architecture and Technology. “With this gift, and other very generous contributions
from our alumni and friends, our focus in petroleum engineering has received a tremendous
jump start and will soon be among the very best in the nation.”
OSU’s College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology is developing the new interdisciplinary
petroleum engineering program which will include both instructional and research dimensions.
A cornerstone of the program will be an undergraduate petroleum minor involving five
courses designed for students in various fields of engineering. The intent of the
petroleum minor is to better prepare students who have committed early to enter the
petroleum industry, as well as to encourage others. Plans also call for the development
of an interdisciplinary research program, along with companion M.S. and Ph.D. programs
to prepare graduates for research and development careers in the industry.
Jean Van Delinder, chair of the OSU Faculty Council, said, “OSU is poised for growth
and further prominence but to realize its full potential we must continue to attract
and retain top scholars and researchers. These chairs highlight the important role
that scholarship and teaching play at Oklahoma State University, and they are made
possible through the generous support of donors who value excellence in scholarship
and want to help OSU continue to nurture a strong faculty.”
Endowed professorships and chairs are academic designations which provide support
for faculty salary, graduate assistantships, equipment and research needs, as well
as other support. These endowed faculty positions allow a university to attract and
retain the best and the brightest academic minds in the world.