Tag: giving

Returning adult student excels thanks to donor support

Since she was a child, Melanie Spurgeon has dreamt of walking the halls of a university and proudly crossing a commencement stage to receive her degree. This year, though her path was far from traditional, she did exactly that, earning her bachelor’s degree in communication sciences and disorders.

With four children between the ages of four and 12, returning to college was no small feat. When she first came to the university in 2019, she could hardly believe there was a place for a student like her, but over the next several years she found it to be a place she not only belonged, but thrived.

“My youngest son was born prematurely the day classes began that year,” she recalls. “He went to every class those first two years; he and my other three have grown up at WSU.”

And that’s not an overstatement. In addition to sitting through classes and joining their mom for extracurricular programs, her sons have also benefited from the instructors in the CSD program.

“My middle son couldn’t speak at age 4, and Professor Slieter worked directly with him,” said Spurgeon, referencing deaf studies instructor Lorita Slieter. “She taught him sign language which he still uses today, despite developing his speech since then.”

Slieter wasn’t the only one who helped Spurgeon succeed along the way. While she was working toward her degree, Spurgeon began to struggle significantly from the effects of multiple sclerosis, a chronic autoimmune disease. As disability seemed to take over her life, often leaving her confined to a wheelchair, she found the support of her instructors to be stronger than ever.

“Dr. Musaji would email me and offer guidance, and at my worst he helped me learn to speak properly again,” she said. “Then there is Dr. Richburg, who not only offered me professional opportunities and guidance, but the humanity I so needed. During a time when so many offered me pity, she gave me a challenge and autonomy that helped me believe in myself.”

While Spurgeon was deeply engaged in her education, the cost of managing a chronic disease and her family life while also handling her college expenses was a challenge. Her junior year, she found out she would be receiving the Oakes Family Scholarship, which is specifically for students in the Cohen Honors College. “I felt such relief,” she said. “Loans and grants went far, but not far enough.”

With the scholarship funds, she was able to find some financial stability as she managed her household. The next year, when the scholarship renewed, she was able to pay for repairs to her van, which she had purchased to transport her wheelchair. The impact of the scholarship for Spurgeon demonstrates the true importance of financial support: giving students the ability to thrive instead of scraping by.

Shortly after she graduated, Spurgeon had the opportunity to meet the donor behind the scholarship, Diane Oakes. She said that it was unlike anything she had experienced before to be able to share what the scholarship meant to her and her family. “That scholarship was yet another blessing in a series of small and magnificent examples of how humanity is beautiful,” she said. “Funds like these can be what gives a student the ability to obtain their education and still meet the heavy demands of life.”

Planning ahead: Young alumna creates estate gift for future students

To say that Jessica Stitt ’08/09/22 has pride in her alma mater is to put it mildly. A third-generation Shocker, she has always considered giving back to the university a priority, largely because of the investment others made in her own life.

“As a student, I got to see these individuals who gave back and did so much for the community on such a large scale,” she recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘someday, I want to be able to do something like that.’”

Stitt has found many ways to give back to the university over the years, speaking to classes and at events and serving on the Alumni Advisory Board and the Shocker Pride Scholar selection committee. This year, she took her investment in WSU a step further, designating a planned gift of $100,000 to create a scholarship supporting study abroad opportunities for STEM students.

“I really wanted to ensure I had put a plan in place for what I knew I wanted to do,” said Stitt. While she hopes to be able to make the scholarship a reality while she is still alive, she didn’t want to leave it up to chance. “What I love about a planned gift is it puts it on paper. If you can spell it out now, then it’s not as hard down the road when you’re gone for your family to remember that this was a thing you would have loved to do.”

A recipient of the Wallace Scholarship, Stitt knows just how big a difference receiving financial assistance can make. She was a highly involved student, serving in leadership positions within her sorority and various engineering programs, and participating in the Puebla program and a semester studying abroad.

It was her time in Querétaro, Mexico, that inspired her to designate her scholarship for similar experiences. “I don’t think people realize how much overlap there is in the corporate world of things you learn in different colleges,” she said. With degrees in both industrial engineering and Spanish, Stitt has been able to create opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise been available, like working as an expat for her company when she was five years into her career after college.

“I wasn’t afraid to do that job because of the opportunities I had in college,” she emphasizes. “And as someone with a STEM degree and a Spanish degree, I’ve found how much those complement each other in today’s global environment.”

Though she may never see the difference her gift will make in the lives of students in the future, Stitt says it’s like a ‘drop in the bucket’ moment, like the way a conversation you don’t remember having can have a huge impact on the person you’re having it with. “Your gift could be the difference between someone dropping out of college or finishing their degree – and you have no idea. That’s the beautiful thing about giving.”.

Learn more about planned giving at Wichita State.

Denis and Shirley Dieker honored with Fairmount Founders’ Award

Denis and Shirley Dieker were named recipients of the 2024 Fairmount Founders’ Award at the annual Fairmount Society dinner hosted by the WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement. The couple are long-time supporters of Wichita State, serving the WSU community since their days as students, and are well-deserving of the award recognizing their outstanding service and generosity to the university.

Denis graduated from Wichita State University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in accountancy and in 1980 with a master’s degree in business administration. His community in Sigma Phi Epsilon supported him as he worked full time to pay for his education. As a member of the fraternity, he was able to hone his leadership skills in the roles of several offices, including a year as president.

The Denis H. Dieker Scholarship was created to give other members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity the same opportunities; providing financial assistance for them to achieve their academic goals while enabling them to be more involved in the fraternity and campus life as a whole. Denis’s time at Wichita State helped him learn the skills that enabled him to serve as executive vice president and CFO of Midwest Drywall for more than 30 years, growing it from a small construction business to a regional contractor.

Shirley graduated in 1980 with an associate and bachelor’s degree in business education, with a minor in Spanish, and found a similar experience to Denis’s within her sorority, Alpha Phi. She established the Shirley J. Dieker Scholarship to support students within the sorority, and hopes that reducing the financial burden of pursuing an education will allow students to get involved on campus wherever they can. 

Denis and Shirley married in 1983 and have two children, Joseph and Margaret. In addition to their respective scholarships, the Diekers support Shocker Athletics, KMUW and the Barton School of Business. They remain active alumni and are eager to see the university continue to flourish.

$100,000 grant from the Kansas Health Foundation to improve health equity for non-native English speakers

One’s health depends on their ability to advocate for themselves in medical settings. To properly articulate symptoms requires precise language, often including technical medical terminology. After all, misdiagnoses can lead to more costly appointments or far worse – fatality.

This pressure exists for all patients, but non-English speakers face the greatest risk of miscommunication between medical providers who default to English for paperwork, phone communications and appointments. This linguistic gap is the exact target of Alce Su Voz (Speak Out) at Wichita State, a program aimed at increasing health equity for speakers of Spanish and Mesoamerican Indigenous languages.

“Our vision is a future in which marginalized language communities have the knowledge, skills and resources they need to attain the highest possible level of health and wellbeing,” Rachel Showstack, associate professor of Spanish and principal investigator, said. “We are already seeing more and more interest in language access planning in hospitals and city governments across the state.”

The program’s vision of health equity piqued the interest of the Kansas Health Foundation, a philanthropy dedicated to improving the health of all Kansans.

“The Building Power and Equity Partnership through the Kansas Health Foundation addresses health disparities, such as those created by linguistic inequity,” Showstack said. “Through this partnership, we have engaged in community-based activities that support civic engagement in Spanish-speaking communities, including access to mental health care services for speakers of Spanish and Mesoamerican Indigenous languages.”

Along with the partnership, the foundation bestowed Alce Su Voz at Wichita State with a $100,000 grant.

“The Kansas Health Foundation sees the potential to expand the program’s reach and impact,” said Lindsey Prewitt, associate director for foundation grants at the WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement. “This grant will be integral to making the mission and vision of Alce Su Voz at Wichita State a reality.”

The Kansas Health Foundation is a philanthropy dedicated to improving the health of all Kansans. For more information about the Kansas Health Foundation, visit www.kansashealth.org.

Significant scholarship established to benefit LAS and CFA students

In 1971, Mike James was finishing out his year as WSU’s student body president and preparing to graduate from WSU with a degree in political science. He had attended Wichita State on a basketball scholarship and planned to apply for scholarships to go to law school. But as is often the course with best-laid-plans – things change.

Uncertain about what his career trajectory would be, James thought about many future possibilities. But what he didn’t imagine in those last days as a Shocker student was one day giving $1.5 million to create a scholarship program at WSU. And yet, 52 years later, that’s exactly what he did. To be awarded through the Distinguished Scholarship Invitational, the newly established Mike and Mary James Scholarship will provide $10,000 each year for four years to a student in the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences or the College of Fine Arts.

“The experiences I had at Wichita State – the people I met, the things I participated in – they went a long way to forming who I am,” James says. “I’d like to see as many students as possible have the same opportunities I had.” He isn’t exaggerating about how important the connections he made at WSU were. His first job came about through a local banker who knew him from the basketball team. “He asked me if I had any interest in banking, and I didn’t,” he says with a laugh. “But I didn’t know what else to do, so I said, ‘Sure, I’ll talk to someone.’”

He was offered a position at a bank in Chicago, and from there his career took off. Since then, he has worked as a vice president or higher at eight different Fortune 100 companies, including Nestlé, Kraft and Motorola. Demanding as his work schedule was, he focused on family – even joining his wife, a professional model, for a photo shoot or two. (That’s “monster” James, BTW, lurking in the background of the photo above.) And he stayed connected to his alma mater. In 2017, he was recognized with the Alumni Achievement Award. He joined the WSU Foundation’s National Advisory Council in 2011 and has served as a member of the Fairmount College Advisory Council as well as on the WSUFAE’s board of directors.

“I think you really owe the university something for all the energy that people there have put into your life,” he says. “A college education can change the trajectory of your life, wherever that leads.”

Family’s gift fuels the future of Wichita State’s Formula SAE team

Joey Hendrich has always loved cars. A child of the ’70s, he grew up working for his dad after school in the auto shop, learning the ins and outs of taking cars apart and putting them back together. Today, he’s able to share a similar experience with his own son, Brody, now a junior at Wichita State.

“The team may be young, but they’re brilliant – all of them,” Joey says about the team members he has mentored at select competitions. “I was able to help them brainstorm a fix when the car wouldn’t run, then they did all the work on their own. I’ve been doing this my whole life, so I could help them think about things they wouldn’t have.”

Shocker Racing sports two teams: Formula SAE, which Joey Hendrich, far left in the photo above, and his wife supported with a generous Founders’ Day gift of $25,000 in 2023. The Hendrichs’ son, Brody, shown here, is a Formula SAE team member.

The team is a student organization focused on building and competing with Formula SAE cars. They work independently, coming up with the concept and design for the small, formula-style race cars and building them from the ground up. The WSU team launched in 2005, but Formula SAE originated decades earlier as a way for engineering students to gain practical engineering skills while bringing a complex project to life following strict guidelines. The competitions welcome hundreds of college and university teams, with some contenders joining from Mexico, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and many other international locations.  “Most of the other university teams are actually a program within the academic school – they have instructors and budgets to help them,” Joey explains. “At WSU, these kids are really challenged. They have to read and understand the rulebooks and reach out online to learn what they don’t know – on their own.”

In addition to learning independently, the team relies on sponsorships and private gifts to finance everything from car parts to travel expenses for competitions. After selling their business last year, Joey and his wife Laurie gifted the team with $25,000 on Founders’ Day. “The team is doing a bang-up job, especially for what they have and what they know – it’s really incredible what they’re able to do,” he says. “We won’t always be able to give, but we could now, and we were glad to give it to the racing team members who needed help.”