From the February 2010 issue of Our Moment, the UConn Foundation's e-newsletter.
UConn’s environmental programming has grown thanks to private support from an alumnus who focuses his philanthropy on the keys to the future: education, the environment and child welfare. Following a gift of seed funding in 2007 for the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering (CESE), Sheldon Kasowitz ’83 and his wife, Samantha, have pledged another $250,000 for environmental education and research through Our University. Our Moment.
The environment is one of three areas of excellence—along with human health and society, culture and the arts—identified in UConn’s academic plan as a priority for investment and enhancement through the campaign. As co-founder and managing partner of Indus Capital Partners in New York, an investment firm that manages $3.5 billion in assets, Kasowitz recognizes potential.
“The environment poses obviously one of the two or three greatest challenges of our time, and I think research universities need to be super competitive in this arena. Any that neglects environmental sciences will be left behind,” says Kasowitz. “With this latest gift, my wife, Samantha, and I want to help enhance and expand environmental education and research with the goal of making UConn a top-10 school nationally.”
Kasowitz, an emeritus director of the UConn Foundation, points out that as the programming expands, UConn will attract greater numbers of renowned faculty and top students. With first-rate education and resources, those scholars and scientists will, in turn, change the world through innovation.
“We’re excited that UConn has made environmental sciences and engineering one of its top goals through not only the academic plan, but also the campaign,” says Kasowitz. “We hope our gift inspires others to support UConn’s efforts to expand education, research and outreach in an area that’s critical to our future.”
As a land and sea grant institution with an RU/VH rating—the highest research level designated by the Carnegie Foundation—UConn has the foundation to become a dominant player in the field, says Michael Willig, professor and founding director of CESE. Before coming to UConn in 2006, Willig directed the ecology program and division of environmental biology at the National Science Foundation.
UConn is addressing a broad range of environmental questions. For example, faculty from across the University collaborate at CESE on remediation, restoration and policy solutions to global challenges such as the loss of biodiversity, infectious diseases, pollution, and deteriorating air and water quality. The center’s new biodiesel testing lab is catalyzing the development of the Connecticut region’s green energy sector. And through the Center for Clean Energy Engineering, UConn is working on breakthroughs in fuel cell technology.
“The generous support from the Kasowitz family allows CESE to support student research and unite the social sciences and biophysical sciences in pursuit of solutions,” says Willig. “We wish to build a critical mass of scholars with strengths that focus on real-world problems. We hope to bring together people, ideas and technologies to help understand environmental dynamics, and to provide science-based guidance to management, conservation and policy.”
For more information about supporting environmental sciences and engineering, please contact the UConn Foundation’s development department.
