Eastern Michigan University has received $2.2 million from the trust of renowned sculptor and potter Jean Noble Parsons (1929-2000). The estate gift is the largest of its kind in the history of EMU. The trust includes $1.75 million in cash and $489,000 in property. The Parsons’ trustees solicited proposals following her death to establish a center in her name and Eastern Michigan University was awarded the gift. EMU will use the gift to establish the Jean Noble Parsons Center for the Study of Art and Science on 86 wooded acres near Traverse City and Interlochen. Programming for the center will maintain the natural state of the land and will be designed to foster interdisciplinary exchanges between artists and scientists.

A recent gift of $200,000 from PHIL JENKINS, local philanthropist, will fund scholarships for returning students in EMU’s Leadership and Counseling program. Jenkins’ generosity supports the Jenkins-Tracy Expendable Scholarship fund, which provides tuition support to a cohort of students during a three-to-four year period while they complete their master’s degrees. This year’s primary focus of the Jenkins-Tracy Scholar Program is on students who have “stopped out” of the educational leadership or counseling program. Scholarship recipients are selected from the EMU on and off-campus centers and the Weekend University, thus enhancing opportunities for students all over southeastern Michigan. Jenkins, an Ann Arbor resident, founded Sweepster, Inc., which manufactures attachment, walk-behind, self-propelled and airport runway sweepers for all types of equipment used around the world.

Gifts to Eastern Michigan University totaled more than $4.2 million this fiscal year and benefited a wide variety of initiatives and scholarships. THE KRESGE FOUNDATION donated $250,000 to fund science equipment, part of the Kresge Foundation Science Initiative Challenge Grant program. EMU alumna DELORES BREHM and her husband, WILLIAM, donated nearly $126,000 to the John Barson Endowed Scholarship in Public Administration, which they established in fond memory of their friend, Dr. Barson, an EMU alumnus who devoted his professional life to health care. The AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER FOUNDATION also supported the Kresge Science Initiative with a gift of $100,000 in fiscal year 2006-07. JEANNE and ERNEST MERLANTI donated $75,000 in continued support of the Merlanti Ethics Initiative in EMU’s College of Business.

The endowment value has topped the $50 million mark for the first time in EMU history. The endowment is managed by the EMU Foundation and is made up of numerous individual scholarships and program endowments benefiting EMU students. The value at June 30, 2007 was $50, 611,186, an increase $5.8 million or 12.9 percent. Total fundraising for fiscal year 2006-07 was more than $4.2 million in cash and gifts-in-kind.