Author: Soo Jin Kim
Occidental College has recently secured a $1 million challenge grant from the John Stauffer Charitable Trust. According to the National Endowment for the Humanities website, “challenge grants help institutions and organizations secure long-term support for, and improvements in, their humanities programs and resources. Challenge grant recipients are required to match NEH funds on a three-to-one or four-to-one basis.”
The trust was established in 1974 by John Stauffer, the Executive Vice President of the Stauffer Chemical Company based in Pasadena, California. This permanent endowment aims to support Oxy’s students majoring in chemistry (including biochemistry, analytical, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry) in conducting summer research with faculty members.
Oxy’s vision to raise $3.5 million has been aided by the Stauffer grant and an endowment of $398,300. Because of the challenge grant, impressive results have been seen, and more than $110,000 has already been raised.
Oxy is now on its way to raise $2.1 million by June 2011. Director of Communications Jim Tranquada said he is confident that Oxy will be able to raise the money by the deadline—not through Telefund, but through private donors.
“Different fundraising projects require different approaches,” he said, stating that while Telefund is “an excellent way to raise unrestricted funds and to increase alumni participation,” private donors would be a more appropriate way of raising funds for the Stauffer program. “We will focus on donors capable of making a major gift by demonstrating to them that this is a highly successful program,” Tranquada said.
“President Prager believes the Challenge Grant will attract gifts that would not be forthcoming for other purposes,” he said.
Tranquada said Oxy does not have the freedom to choose where the money goes, as the majority of money raised by the College is designated for particular programs or purposes.
“It’s rare to find a donor willing to write a big check and say ‘Spend it on whatever you want,'” Tranquada said. “Most donors are interested in supporting a specific area. Gifts designated for a specific purpose legally can only be used for that particular program.”
Chair of the Chemistry Department and Associate Professor Eileen Spain is enthusiastic about the challenge grant, calling it a “tremendous opportunity” for Oxy students. “The challenge grant honors the culmination of decades of intellectual work and physical labor from faculty and their students who built an excellent record of scientific achievement,” she said.
Spain said this grant is important to Oxy, because in the past, it was difficult for students to conduct original scientific research. “Producing scientific knowledge is expensive,” she said. “Usually, there are more students than stipends for our summer research program.”
Occidental’s Undergraduate Research Program has helped more than 700 students in the past eight years receive funding for joint summer research with faculty members. The Stauffer grant will help Oxy’s students receive funds annually and help continue Oxy’s legacy of having the largest contingent at the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research of any participating school. This year, 25 Occidental students were accepted to present their research at the National Undergraduate Research Conference, which is more than all of the UCLA, Caltech, Yale and Stanford students combined.
Sarah Jane Fischer (junior) is excited about the grant. She anticipates that receiving the grant will be “one of the highlights of [her] Occidental education, as well as being crucial in [her] personal academic growth.”
Fischer, who has plans of attending graduate school for environmental or organic chemistry, believes “the research Oxy students conduct distinguishes us in a nationally competitive job front in chemistry. Even large research-based universities do not provide the resources, professors and overall experience that this grant supports.”
Donald Johnson (senior) agrees that the Stauffer grant is fundamental in providing a better educational and practical experience for chemistry students. “I personally feel research teaches the material and brings concepts into practicality, which is so theoretical when taught in the classroom,” he said. “Now, science can be our focus and professors can now devote their personal grants toward improving the department instruments and facilities.”
Tranquada expects that in the long run, the Stauffer Grant will become a model to “increase support for undergraduate research in chemistry and biochemistry and to build a model to raise additional funds for other fields of research.”
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