The Grand Challenge Scholars program has been endowed with a $1 million donation from the family of a late Board of Visitors chair.
Susie Simon announced her family’s $1 million donation in early November at a Pratt Board of Visitors meeting, in honor of her husband J. Stephen Simon, Engineering ’65, who passed away unexpectedly in July. J. Stephen Simon was chair of the Pratt Board of Visitors and a former director and senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corporation. The GC Scholars program asks Pratt School of Engineering students to address societal issues such as access to clean water.
At the Pratt Board of Visitors meeting Nov. 14, Pratt Dean Tom Katsouleas and President Richard Brodhead announced the naming of room 115 in the Teer building as the “J. Stephen Simon Instructional Classroom”
“My husband went to Duke and one of his primary causes in life was to work with Duke and Pratt,” Susie Simon said. “He thought very highly of education and always wanted to work for further education for young men and women. I thought of no better way to honor him than to give this to the school.”
The endowment will guarantee funding for Pratt students who are accepted into the GC Scholars program to pursue innovative and creative projects related to a list of 14 challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering, said Martha Absher, Pratt assistant dean for education and outreach programs. Pratt will graduate its first group of GC Scholars this year.
“Personally, this is so exciting for the Pratt School to have a gift of this magnitude for this educational program,” Katsouleas said. “To be able to launch Pratt into such a lead role is terribly exciting.”
The GC Scholars program is a new initiative spearheaded by Pratt, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, and the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering. The program encourages students to address the National Academy of Engineering’s 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering. The challenges include preventing nuclear terror, producing energy from fusion and securing cyberspace.
Previously, the Simons demonstrated their support for the program by making donations to start the GC Scholars program and provide funding for 10 students per year for the coming three years.
Katsouleas said the Simons were “very passionate supporters” of the Grand Challenges Summit that Duke hosted last March, attending every talk in the two-day-meeting.
Simon said she and her husband were very impressed with the summit and that she made the donation in order to let people know how important the Grand Challenges program was for her husband.
“After going to the summit and watching the educators talk about the things that could be done, we realized that this was the way we want to put our money to inspire students to achieve these higher goals,” Susie Simon said.
Absher said the long-term goal for the program is for Pratt students to become involved in Grand Challenge activities beginning their freshman year and to build a list of Grand Challenges accomplishments before formally joining the program their junior year.