Scholarships to benefit KU design, engineering students


Tue, 05/10/2016

author

Michelle Strickland

LAWRENCE — An estate gift of nearly $430,000 from the late University of Kansas alumna Patricia A. Rozema Taylor has established two new scholarships at KU, one for design students in the School of Architecture, Design & Planning, and one for students in the School of Engineering.

The gift has been divided equally to create the scholarships. The design scholarship is named for Taylor, who earned a bachelor’s degree in interior design from KU in 1963. Taylor moved to Topeka as a child with her family, where she died in September 2015. She named the engineering scholarship for her late brother, Donald N. Rozema, who earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from KU in 1951.

Mahesh Daas, dean of the School of Architecture, Design & Planning, said the estate gift would benefit generations of KU students.

“We are very grateful for Patricia’s generosity to our school,” Daas said. “Patricia’s gift arrives at a crucial time for our design students. For hundreds of years to come, her scholarship gift will grow and help educate talented designers and fulfill our vision to become a pioneering force for achieving global impact through design.”

Michael Branicky, dean of the School of Engineering, expressed appreciation for the new scholarship.

“We are honored to receive this gift from a family with such strong ties to KU and the School of Engineering,” Branicky said. “These funds will provide invaluable opportunities to deserving students who have great potential.”

Taylor deeply appreciated her KU education and often said she used the design skills she learned at KU in some way every day. Her brother, Donald, had followed in his father’s footsteps as an engineer. Taylor, in coming into her brother’s and father’s possessions after their deaths, said she had inherited more slide rules, protractors and engineering gadgets than she could have ever imagined.

The gift counts toward Far Above: The Campaign for Kansas, the university’s comprehensive fundraising campaign. Far Above seeks support to educate future leaders, advance medicine, accelerate discovery and drive economic growth to seize the opportunities of the future.

The campaign is managed by KU Endowment, the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment was the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.

Tue, 05/10/2016

author

Michelle Strickland

Media Contacts

Michelle Strickland

KU Endowment

785-832-7363