October 11, 2006

Dear Friends:

From the largesse of local private donors to major grants from federal foundations and institutions, the funding for Boise State University’s widening research agenda and important services continues to grow. Four recent examples have bolstered our efforts in the areas of biology, gender studies, engineering and geosciences.

• Boise State will establish a new endowed chair in the Department of Biology with a donation from Boise residents Duane and Lori Stueckle that will total between $1.5 million and $2.3 million. The Stueckles’ gift will provide annual support for an existing faculty member who is involved in research and teaching with biomedical applications, particularly involving the study of proteins and genes, molecular biology and cell biology. After learning about Boise State’s biomedical research program, the Stueckles decided they could make the biggest difference by establishing an endowed chair at Idaho’s largest university rather than investing in programs at Harvard or other institutions.

Duane, a Boise businessman and entrepreneur, and Lori have been longtime supporters of Boise State and have now donated nearly $3 million to the university. The Stueckles were among the 11 lead supporters who stepped forward to contribute an initial $7 million toward the Caven-Williams Sports Complex, and last year they established a Dean’s Distinguished Professor award in the Biology Department. The new endowed chair is the first established in the College of Arts and Sciences and comes at a critical time for our fast-growing biomedical research program. We are exceedingly grateful to Duane and Lori for their generosity and foresight.

• The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a $750,000 grant to the Boise State Gender Studies Program, the State Independent Living Council and the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. The team will develop and implement innovative approaches to ending violence against women with disabilities in Idaho. Through this initiative, Boise State and its partners will educate and train service providers working in law enforcement, health care, shelters, counseling and the legal system.

• The National Science Foundation has awarded Boise State a grant for major research instrumentation that can be used to study the structure on an atomic level of materials ranging from metals to viruses to rocks.

The instrument, an X-ray diffraction system, will be housed in the new Center for Materials Characterization in the College of Engineering, and used by researchers in a broad range of engineering and science disciplines.

Total cost for the instrument and technical services is $527,000, including the $347,000 NSF award and $180,000 in supporting funds from Boise State.

• Speaking of scientific instrumentation, last week the university received another big delivery of research equipment — and I do mean big. The equipment, a thermal ionization mass spectrometer, or TIMS, weighs more than a ton, and the components had to be machine-lifted to the second floor of the Math/Geosciences Building and then wheeled to our new ultraclean Isotope Geology Laboratory. The TIMS was purchased with a $620,000 NSF grant and will enable Boise State researchers to collaborate with scientists at MIT, Cal Berkeley and other NSF-funded geosciences research programs.

To help administer these new research advances, the university recently hired Mark Rudin, currently the interim vice president for research and graduate dean at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as our vice president for research. Our aspirations as a metropolitan research university have received a tremendous boost with Mark accepting this important role. His abilities as a scientist, teacher and administrator will serve Boise State well at this critical juncture in the university’s growth. We are fortunate to attract an individual who has direct experience and success in developing and expanding research programs.

To fulfill its vision of innovative research, Boise State must continue to reap the financial benefits of private and public support such as the gifts and grants mentioned above. Such funding will remain crucial to our ambitious research agenda, which includes long-range plans for additional science and engineering facilities, and growing academic needs.

Another indication of Boise State’s growing stature as an institution of higher education is the quality of guest lecturers who have been lined up for the first few months of 2007. Our campus visitors will include civil rights leader Jesse Jackson on Jan. 17 as part of Boise State’s Martin Luther King Jr./Human Rights Celebration; radio personality Garrison Keillor on Jan. 22 as the guest of Boise State Radio; former Vice President Al Gore on Jan. 24 as the keynote speaker at the Frank Church Conference on Public Affairs; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder on Feb. 28 as the guest of the university’s First-Year Reading Program; and Hans Blix, former chief UN weapons inspector on March 12 as part of our Distinguished Lecture Series.

Speaking of renowned guest lecturers, I’d like to remind you that William Niskanen, one of the most highly regarded microeconomists in the nation, will speak at 7 p.m. Oct. 16 in the Jordan Ballroom of Boise State’s Student Union. His talk, titled “Constitutional Anarchy in America,” is sponsored by the College of Business and Economics in conjunction with the John and Orah Brandt Foundation. Niskanen has been chairman of the Cato Institute since 1985, following service as a member and as acting chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. His speech is free and open to the public.

With these significant developments and others, along with the Bronco football team’s national rankings and flirtation with an unbeaten regular season, these continue to be exciting times on our campus.

As always, my thanks for everything you do for Boise State.

Best Regards,

Bob Kustra
President