OSU announces two more chairs

NewsPress Staff

July 17, 2008 12:24 pm

— Oklahoma State University continues to announce donations to endow professorships and faculty chairs.
The gifts were made before July 1, so they were matched by a portion of Boone Pickens’ $100 million donation and a state program that matched 100 percent of gifts for endowments.
The program changed July 1 to a $5 million statewide annual limit and only a 25 percent match of gifts bigger than $250,000.
Donations before that were worth $4 for each $1 given due to the matches.
The gifts announced Wednesday are: Regents Professor Stan Gilliland, Advance Food, and others who gave $288,500 for a food safety position; and a $500,000 Masonic gift for a gender studies chair.
The collaborative endowment was initiated by Gilliland, an OSU regents professor and Sitlington Endowed Chair Holder in Food Microbiology, who donated the first $125,000 and challenged his fellow animal science faculty to contribute to the fund which generated an additional $8,550. Enid-based Advance Food Co. provided $125,000 to fully endow the professorship. Additionally, Culture Systems, Inc. donated $20,000 and Nutrition Physiology, Corp. donated $10,000.
The gift will create the Advance Food Co./S.E. Gilliland Professorship in Microbial Food Safety, which will be housed within the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.
The $500,000 gift from the Masonic Charity Foundation of Oklahoma will create the Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma Gender Studies Chair in the College of Arts & Sciences. The Masonic Fraternity is interested in academic disciplines like sociology, psychology, history and philosophy aimed at researching the importance of men and the role men play in enhancing the stability of family and social life, as well as the economic and social progress of society.