OSU announces three new endowed faculty positions to benefit music, business, rural health
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Forward-thinking donors provide funding for OSU-Stillwater, OSU-Tulsa and OSU Center
for Health Sciences
View Full List of Endowed Faculty Chair Announcements
Contributing donors include OSU/A&M Board of Regent Doug Burns and his wife Nickie,
OSU/A&M Board of Regent Jay Helm and his wife Fayenelle, and the Tahlequah Hospital
Foundation.
“We sincerely appreciate our regents and their wives supporting OSU in such a generous
way and thank them for everything they do for our university,” said OSU President
Burns Hargis. “We also appreciate what the Tahlequah Hospital Foundation is doing
for rural health through its generous gift.”
A $250,000 gift from Norman, Okla. residents Doug and Nickie Burns will create a vocal
music professorship within OSU’s College of Arts & Sciences. Currently a partner at
Burns & Stowers PC, Doug graduated from OSU with a degree in political science in
1975 and currently serves as chairman of the OSU/A&M Board of Regents. Nickie graduated
from OSU with a degree in sociology in 1974.
“The arts, in particular, are often overlooked. We hope this gift will help to retain
our best faculty,” said Doug. “Our goal is to raise the visibility of the arts and
to provide support for our outstanding music department.”
Tulsa residents Jay and Fayenelle Helm provided $250,000 to create a business professorship
at OSU-Tulsa. The current president of American Residential Group, Helm received a
business degree from OSU in 1970. A current member of the OSU/A&M Board of Regents,
the gift creates the Jay and Fayenelle Helm Professorship located within the business
college at OSU-Tulsa. The couple’s daughter graduated last year from OSU’s College
of Arts & Sciences.
“Our philanthropic support of OSU derives from our genuine belief in OSU and specifically
in OSU-Tulsa,” said Jay. “We want all students to receive a first rate education
in Tulsa and in the State of Oklahoma.”
A $250,000 gift from the Tahlequah Hospital Foundation will create a professorship
in rural graduate medical education located within OSU’s Center for Health Sciences.
The Tahlequah, Okla. based foundation made the gift to encourage excellence in teaching
and scholarship in rural medicine. Earnings from the endowed position will provide
support for salary augmentation, participation in conferences, curriculum development
and research expenditures.
“It has pretty much always been our mission that we do whatever we can to enhance
the healthcare delivery in Tahlequah,” said Gary Chapman, chairman of the foundation’s
board of directors. “I’ve been impressed with [OSU Medicine] for a long time, which
is basically right here in our front yard. This gift gives us a chance to work with
someone with a long history of great results and success. When we make an investment
in a candidate we certainly hope that they will return to us, and that will help us
years down the line.”
In order to take full advantage of the state’s dollar-for-dollar match, and make the
most significant impact on OSU academics, each donor made their gift prior to the
July 1 change in the state’s endowed chair matching program. These gifts are part
of the $66.8 million in endowed faculty gifts OSU announced earlier.
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.