A $20,000 gift from Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI), with additional funding totaling $50,000 over three years, will support the cooperative engineering program in mechanical engineering launched in 2019 by Missouri S&T and Missouri State University. “AECI’s generous gift will help open the door to engineering for more students in southwest Missouri while supporting workforce development for future professionals across the state,” says Richard Wlezien, S&T’s vice provost and dean of engineering and computing. Springfield-based AECI provides electricity to approximately 910,000 homes, farms and businesses through 51 local electric cooperatives in Missouri, southeast Iowa and northeast Oklahoma. Read more about AECI’s partnership.

Missouri S&T alumni John Gibson, EMgt’74, and Kristie (Capps) Gibson, EMgt’74, have transformed Miner Athletics over the past two years with a series of gifts and pledges totaling $6.4 million. The largest individual donors to the university in the past decade, they continue to champion S&T student-athletes in competition and in the classroom.

Congratulations to the OGS members honored by the Miner Alumni Association during Homecoming in October: Gerry Stevenson, ChE’59, MS ChE’63, and Paul Lang, MinE’83, recipients of the Alumni Merit Award; Dixie Finley, Psyc’68, who received the Robert V. Wolf Alumni Service Award; and Bill Hallett, MetE’55, who was honored with the Frank H. Mackaman Alumni Volunteer Service Award. Ten honorees received awards during the annual Miner Legends Lunch.

There wasn’t much exposure to engineering when Joan Woodard, AMth’73, was in high school. But the world of engineering opened up at Missouri S&T. “Once I got to Rolla, I had many friends studying engineering,” she says. “I knew that’s what I ultimately wanted to do.” Now Woodard and her husband, James Woodard Jr., have established a $1 million faculty endowment in S&T’s electrical and computer engineering department. The Woodard Associate Professorship for Excellence will support amid-career faculty member on the path to full professor by providing research funding and other resources.  Continue reading →