In Investment In Learning, the Capital Campaign for Florida State University, is red hot, with gifts coming in at a rate of $1 million a week.
Nearly three-and-one-half years into the five-year campaign, $145 million of the $200 million goal has already been raised, according to Martin Terrell, director of advancement services.
"We are nearing the end of the major gifts phase of the Campaign," Terrell said. "We are about to enter the broad faculty/staff and general phases which will allow a greater number of people to be a part of this great endeavor and participate in the mission of Florida State University."
The leadership of recent gifts -- such as the Housewright $2-million donation for a performing arts center and the $1.02-million contribution to the College of Business by NationsBank -- sets the tone for continued success for the campaign.
"Major league academic and sports programs here at Florida State deserve a major league fund-raising effort," said J. Jeffrey Robison, president of the FSU Foundation. "And that's just what we're building at the foundation."
The foundation, the money-raising arm that supports academics at FSU, has acquired a new vice president with a good record of raising money at other universities.
Patricia Stewart, vice president for institutional advancement at Peace College, Raleigh, N. C., has been appointed vice president for constituent programs of the FSU Foundation.
Stewart, who helped coordinate a $230-million capital campaign for North Carolina State University, will coordinate the FSU campaign within each of FSU's 16 schools and colleges.
"Patti has the professional experience, skills and leadership to raise the level of our fund-raising efforts and help make our goals a reality," Robison said.
Stewart has a 20-year career in higher education. She also has been a professor, researcher and administrator. -- Carl Voelcker
Hoffmans endow chemistry scholarship
A professor emerita who paid for her college education in the 1930s with crates of oranges has, with her husband, endowed a $100,000 scholarship fund for chemistry students at her alma mater, Florida State University.
Katherine "Kitty" B. Hoffman, a retired FSU chemistry professor, and Harold "Hank" Hoffman, for 17 years the assistant commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture, have established the Katherine Blood Hoffman Endowed Scholarship in Chemistry, which is eligible for an additional $50,000 in state matching money. The Hoffmans live in Tallahassee.
"It is a small payback for all my years as a member of that community -- from being a student, to being an alumna, to being a faculty member, and now an emerita," said Kitty Hoffman. "It was a rich life always being with young people."
The fund will provide scholarships to students in the chemistry department, where Hoffman taught from 1940 to 1984.
"Kitty Hoffman is one of the reasons Florida State University is the institution it is today," said FSU President Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte. "The strength of its science programs, its sense of community and caring, derives from people like Kitty Hoffman who have served Florida State with dedication, dignity and grace."
Hoffman graduated from FSCW with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and bacteriology in 1936, then went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University in 1938.
In 1933, the Great Depression had threatened to keep her out of school. But the college accepted truckloads of oranges from her father's fruit business in payment of her $265 tuition -- as well as the $25 for a tonsillectomy in the campus infirmary.
Hoffman returned to Florida State, serving from 1940 to 1959 as an instructor when it was unusual for a woman to teach chemistry at the university level. She advanced to full professor of chemistry in 1973, was the university's last dean of women, 1967-70, and was president of the FSU Faculty Senate, 1981- 82.
The Hoffman Teaching Laboratory is named for her.
Harold Hoffman, born in Nebraska and a Florida resident since 1919, graduated from Winter Haven High School as did his wife -- he in 1931, she the next year. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Florida in 1938.
In 1942, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, and served during World War II at New Caledonia, Guadalcanal and Bougainville.
After the war, he returned to the Agriculture Department where he rose to assistant commissioner in 1965. He received the Agriculture Department's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in 1972. He retired 12 years ago. -- Cindy Mooy
Bruning invests in professorships
Praising the education he received at FSU, banker Charles A. Bruning has donated $100,000 to the FSU Foundation and the FSU College of Business to endow a professorship in entrepreneurial management.
"I am deeply indebted to Dean Melvin Stith, the College of Business and Dr. John Kerr for contributing so much to my success," said Bruning, director of First Southern Bank in Boca Raton.
The gift is eligible to be matched by a Florida Challenge Grant of $50,000.
"The Charles A. Bruning Professorship in Entrepreneurship will enable the college to recognize and retain an outstanding professor by providing additional support for his or her teaching, research and service," Stith said. "It is especially important that this donation comes from an alum."
Bruning, a marketing and finance major at FSU in the late 1960s, praised the curriculum, the professors, the counsel he received and the assistance of Kerr, who helped him obtain a scholarship to the Indiana University Graduate School of Business, where he earned an M.B.A.
Bruning said the eight-year-old entrepreneurship major that gives students practical experience is an example of the college's innovative approach. More than 500 businesses in the Leon County area have been helped by the Small Business Institute, which allows students to consult with these businesses under the supervision of faculty.
"Business schools need to teach their students how to start their own businesses, how to manage them, create value and product, and survive and become successful," he said.
Bruning, 49, recently sold his company, Edgemark Financial Corp., to Old Kent Bank in Chicago. He has started two new companies, Compulease Corp. of Illinois and Amerimark Financial Corp. -- Browning Brooks
Guaranty Bank supports competition
Beginning in spring 1996, students in the College of Business at FSU will be able to compete for a cash prize to launch their first businesses.
The $2,500 Business Plan Competition Prize offered by Guaranty National Bank will be awarded to the student with the winning plan for starting a new business.
"The purpose is to recognize outstanding student entrepreneurial activities and to encourage the winner to implement his or her plan," said FSU finance Professor Jerome Osteryoung. He said more than half of the plans produced in academia are eventually used in the business world.
"If some day I see a product come out of this, something marketable that is creating jobs, and we had just a little bit to do with encouraging it, that would make me very happy," said William Sutton, president of Guaranty National.
Guaranty National Bank has seven offices, 75 employees and assets of $132 million. Founded in 1986, it continues to expand and is now Tallahassee's only locally owned national bank. -- Browning Brooks
Gift recalls Atkins' service
Friends and family of the late Robert L. Atkins, longtime insurance executive and expert in health and malpractice insurance, have donated $200,000 to the FSU Foundation and the College of Business for a memorial professorship in risk management and insurance.
The gift is eligible to be matched by the state at $100,000.
"This professorship will serve as a constant reminder of Robert L. Atkins' four decades of service to the community, the state and the insurance industry," said Professor Patrick Maroney, chairman of the department of risk management/insurance, real estate and business law. "He was universally liked and respected."
The donors include Atkins' longtime partner, Samuel B. Rogers Sr., the co-founder of Rogers-Atkins Insurance Inc. in Tallahassee in 1959, widow Kathleen B. Atkins, the Atkins children, FSU law Professor Joseph Jacobs, Gulf Atlantic Insurance Co., Dependable Protective Mutual Risk Retention Group Inc. and other friends.
Atkins, who died Oct. 16 at the age of 62, was founder and director of First Bank of Tallahassee and a former director of Barnett Bank.
A native of Charleston, W.Va., he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from FSU.
He was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Rogers-Atkins Insurance Inc. until December 1991, when the company split into an insurance agency and an insurance holding company. After that, he was president of RAI Insurance Services Inc., Gulf Atlantic Insurance Co. and Dependable Protective Mutual Insurance Co. -- Browning Brooks
Ferguson, Maxwell create institute
The Institute for Family Violence Studies is now a reality thanks to a $100,000 gift from Tallahassee attorney Howell Ferguson and his wife, Dr. Sharon Maxwell, associate dean of the School of Social Work. The gift, through the Florida State University Capital Campaign, "An Investment In Learning," is eligible for another $50,000 in matching money from the state of Florida.
According to School of Social Work Dean Dianne Montgomery, "The institute will conduct research on family violence as it occurs across the lifespan, including child abuse, partner abuse, sexual abuse and elder abuse, using a person-in environment approach."
The institute will also analyze legislation on family violence, collaborate with community-based organizations and agencies on family violence and evaluate family violence interventions. -- Carl Voelcker
NationsBank gives $1 million
NationsBank of Florida is establishing two professorships and paying for other programs at the FSU College of Business.
"We are well-aware of the quality of education that Florida State University has provided many of our NationsBank associates," said Adelaide A. Sink, president of NationsBank of Florida.
The endowment will total $1,020,000. In addition to professorships in finance and business administration, it will support curriculum innovation, applied research and student assistance.
"The NationsBank professorships will help us to attract and retain quality, caring faculty whose careers in teaching and research will greatly enhance our quest for excellence," said College of Business Dean Melvin Stith.
"This long-standing partnership has already funded scholarships and faculty awards," said FSU Foundation President J. Jeffrey Robison. "This new endowment ensures development in innovative technologies. such as distance learning, to help keep the College of Business plugged in."
NationsBank is one of the largest banks in Florida, with more than $23 billion in assets and nearly 400 banking centers throughout the state. -- Carl Voelcker
Musician gives music-theatre chair
An alumna of FSU's School of Music has donated the money for a $1- million chair in music theater.
The Marcus B. and Betty Graves Shelfer Eminent Scholar Chair in Music Theatre has been established through a gift in trust from Betty Graves Shelfer, in memory of her husband, with whom she shared a love for music theater.
The deferred gift of $600,000 is to be matched with $400,000 from the state.
"This magnificent gift from Mrs. Shelfer will make a significant impact on the lives of music theater students in perpetuity at FSU," said Jon Piersol, dean of the School of Music.
Betty Shelfer, a native of Quincy as was her late husband, graduated from Florida State College for Women in 1940 with a bachelor's degree in music. She studied piano under Ella Scoble Opperman, then dean of the School of Music. Over the years, she has presented numerous concerts with the Quincy Music Club and the Centenary United Methodist Church in Quincy.
Marcus Shelfer, a flight instructor during World War II, was a successful businessman in Quincy. He was a 1938 graduate of the University of Florida in business administration and played the cornet in the University Band.
The Shelfer Chair in music theater will be the third million-dollar chair in the FSU School of Music. -- Cindy Mooy