IU Kokomo Lined Up For Largest-Ever Gift
Person was chancellor for 9 years.
A former chancellor of Indiana University Kokomo is pledging the largest gift in the school’s history. The $3.5 million donation from Chancellor Emerita Ruth Person will support scholarships.
Person led the campus from 1999 to 2008.
The gift will support the RMJ Scholars Program, which Person named to honor three women in her life who "believed strongly in the value of education": her grandmother, Florence Richardson McGee; her mother, Ruth Mahoney Janssen; and herself.
Once the gift is finalized, the university says it is eligible for matching funding through the $2.5 billion "For All: The Bicentennial Campaign for Indiana University" initiative, which is the most ambitious campaign in IU history.
Person says "My ultimate goal is for the students to have success – to complete their IU degree and graduate. After graduation, it is my hope that many of them would stay in north central Indiana and contribute to leadership in the future."
Part of the donation is earmarked for administrative costs to support recipients as they aim to complete a college degree.
Current Chancellor Susan Sciame-Giesecke says programs like RMJ Scholars will be a key to raising the rate of college completion in the city and region. "This campus is extremely grateful to Chancellor Person for her generous donation. Her scholarship will impact a significant group of students each year. She will provide access and opportunity to so many north central Indiana students."
IUK says Person’s tenure was marked by a period of substantial growth on the campus that included the addition of several bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as development of more than a dozen new academic curricula. She helped lock-in $1 million in federal funding for what’s now called the Inventrek building, which is home to the region’s first co-working space.
After leaving the Howard County campus, Person became the seventh chancellor of the University of Michigan’s Flint location until 2014.