Endowments
The K20 Center encourages gifts to create endowments for student scholarships, graduate fellowships, faculty enrichment and for use by the director of the K20 Center to meet the Center’s strategic vision and objectives. These gifts are an investment in the future of the K20 Center, providing enduring support for our students, faculty and interdisciplinary programs. Endowment gifts are invested wisely and carefully by the University of Oklahoma Foundation Inc. with only the earnings used to support the designated need.
Named endowments serve as a tribute to the generosity of donors or a vehicle to honor a special person. An endowment may be named for:
- The endowment fund’s primary donor, whether an individual, foundation or corporation
- A friend or family member whom the donor wishes to honor or memorialize
- An individual who has given noteworthy service to the University
UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS - K20 SCHOLARS
Named scholarship endowments may be established with a one-time gift or multi-year commitment of $30,000 for freshman scholarships, $40,000 for upper-class scholarships, and $50,000 for leadership scholarships. A typical agreement that governs each of our endowed scholarships can be reviewed in Adobe PDF format.
GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS
A premier graduate program must have superior faculty and an innovative, future-oriented research program. To meet the future needs for faculty, external research, industry and government worldwide, we must be prepared to aggressively compete for the best graduate students from the top schools in our region and across the United States. The availability of financial support is often the deciding factor, and thus it is necessary to provide additional funding through endowed graduate fellowships. Named endowed graduate fellowships may be established with a one-time gift or multi-year commitment $100,000 or more. A typical agreement that governs each of our endowed fellowships can be reviewed in Adobe PDF format.
FACULTY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Our ability to attract and retain a distinguished faculty will continue to require incentives beyond the traditional salary and rank. Endowed faculty positions are the most effective means to attract and retain both senior and promising junior faculty, as they provide funds for salary supplements, professional development and research support. In addition, a faculty of high reputation increases the K20 Center’s ability to attract private research support. Thus, faculty endowments continue to be a high priority for the K20 Center’s interdisciplinary degree programs.
In 1988, the Oklahoma Legislature established the Oklahoma State Regents Endowment Program, an innovative way to strengthen the state’s colleges and universities by matching private gifts for endowed faculty positions established in academic disciplines that contributing to the cultural, business, scientific or economic development of the state. Income from these endowments can be used to supplement the salary of the faculty member, provide other scholarly expenses related to the faculty member’s teaching and research, buy equipment, or fund graduate assistance.
The matching program has helped many donors provide a meaningful legacy to the University of Oklahoma, their favorite programs and to generations of OU students. Since 1989, the university has experienced phenomenal growth in the number of endowed faculty positions, which have been established in 15 different colleges on the Norman, Oklahoma City Health Sciences Center, and Tulsa campuses, and in a variety of innovative interdisciplinary areas.
Chairs are created with an endowment of at least $1 million, which typically involves a private gift and state regents’ match of $500,000 each. The state regents’ program will match larger private gifts, and a number of the University’s most prestigious positions have been endowed at multi-million dollar levels. Endowed chairs enable a college or program to recruit and retain faculty whose national reputations elevate its prominence and whose experience and expertise make an exceptional contribution to its teaching, research and public service. National searches are typically held to fill these positions. A typical agreement that governs each of our endowed chairs can be reviewed in Adobe PDF format.
Professorships are endowed with at least $500,000. Typically these professorships are created with $250,000 in private gifts and $250,000 from the state regents’ program, but the program will match larger gifts to establish professorships. Professorships enable the university to retain respected and effective faculty members who are making an exceptional contribution to OU’s mission of teaching, research and public service. These positions may be filled through national or internal searches. A typical agreement that governs each of our endowed faculty positions can be reviewed in Adobe PDF format.
