Sept. 9, 1997

By Judith Galas

Gifts Reach $20 Million

SELF PROGRAM AT KU SURPASSES NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FELLOWSHIPS

LAWRENCE -- Twenty million dollars in gifts -- the largest total amount ever given by an individual to the Kansas University Endowment Association -- has created an endowed fellowship program that offers about $100,000 each in support for tomorrow's leaders, KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway announced today.

Through their gifts, Madison "Al" and Lila Self of Hinsdale, Ill., have created the Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship Program at the University of Kansas. The Selfs' gift can simultaneously support 32 graduate students who seek a Ph.D. degree.

"A select group of doctoral students who possess the brilliance and fortitude to leave their mark on the world have found their benefactors in Al and Lila Self," Hemenway said.

The program's two-pronged mission of strong financial support and ongoing leadership development sets it apart from other graduate fellowship programs. Financially, it surpasses the support offered by the prestigious Rhodes, Truman, Mellon and Marshall fellowship programs. Personally, the Selfs and the program's administrators are committed to help Fellows prepare for leadership roles in their chosen fields.

Part of this preparation includes an annual fall retreat, a one-day spring symposium and regular discussion meetings throughout the year with noteworthy resources and potential role models from a variety of fields. These group activities, which include gatherings with pacesetters in business, government, and the academy, are designed to expand the fellows' knowledge about a broad range of subjects. This year's four-day retreat to Washington, D.C., including White House meetings, will challenge the fellows with the issue of public policy: Who makes it? and Who influences it?

"We wanted to establish an ongoing program to recruit, select and help prepare unusually talented and highly motivated young people who aspire to be among those who will make a real difference in tomorrow's world and who can be expected to leave noteworthy legacies in the fields of science, business, government, and academia," Al Self said.

The Selfs first established their fellowship in 1989 and have continued to make annual donations to the endowed fund that supports this program. Recently their support reached $20 million. Currently, KU has 20 Self Fellows with interests ranging from chemistry and business to pharmacology, and speech, language and hearing. Six fellows have completed the program. Half of these have earned their Ph.D.s.; three others are finishing their programs.

This semester Cory Beard, 29, of Olathe, Kan., enters his third fellowship year. A doctoral student in electrical engineering, Beard left a promising job as a consulting engineer to return to school. The funds certainly attracted him to KU and the Self Fellowship program.

"I'd been working for three years, and my wife and I wanted to start a family," he said. "The fellowship made it financially possible for me to go back to school."

But Beard appreciated more than the financial support. "I valued the fact that the program wanted people who were going to make a difference."

With research that focuses on prioritizing Internet access, Beard finds himself positioned to play a role in shaping the way the general public views and uses the Internet. Already congested with messages, the Internet must find a way to give a higher priority to some messages. He hopes the artificial intelligence in the software he's creating will enable networks to negotiate which messages take precedence.

"Internet access is going to become a public policy hot spot," said Beard. "The question is 'How can we make the Internet truly useful to society?'"

With encouragement and support from her mentor, Dr. Eli Michaelis, Self Fellow Julie Mach is conducting ground-breaking research in pharmacology and toxicology. "I am cloning a brain protein that is part of a receptor that is involved in learning, aging, and memory functions," Julie said.

"Studying how the protein works will contribute to a fuller understanding of those functions."

A native of Minto, N.D., Mach is beginning her third year as a Self Fellow at KU. The Fellowship played a big part in her choice of KU over another school, but she didn't realize when she decided to attend KU what the Fellowship would come to mean to her.

"Once I knew I had the fellowship, I knew I wanted to come to KU," Mach said. "I knew I liked KU and that it had a good Pharmacology Department. It was kind of a you-can't-go-wrong type of thing.

"At first I thought the fellowship would just provide a good stipend, but then I learned more about the program. As another supplement to my education, the opportunities are amazing. At the retreats we go on, we meet people we would never meet otherwise. We get to develop leadership skills and have travel money to go to conferences we might not be able to attend as a regular graduate student. And plus we have the chance to get out of our own little science world by getting to know other Self Fellows and exchanging ideas with them. It's just such an unbelievable opportunity. I'm so grateful to Al and Lila Self."

Al Self said, "Our hopes and visions are that Self Fellows like Cory Beard and Julie Mach will be among those who will provide courageous and inspired leadership, which will be ever more essential as the frontiers of knowledge continually move forward."

Self, himself a leader in the business world, met his wife, Lila, when both were students at KU. They married in 1943, the same year he graduated with a degree in chemical engineering. In 1947, he acquired Bee Chemical Co. in Lansing, Ill. When he sold the company 37 years later, it had grown from a staff of three to a sizable corporation with five U.S. manufacturing sites and operations in Japan and England. He currently serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Tioga International, Inc., a company which he, along with his three associates, established in 1989. The company is engaged in research, development and manufacturing and is headquartered in Calumet City, Ill. He is also President of Allen Financial, Inc.

Lila Reetz Self, a native of Eudora, Kan., attended KU with the class of 1943. Through the years she has maintained a special interest in art and architecture and has been active in the community, including serving on the Student Life Committee at Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology. The couple has one son.

The Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship is open to all incoming doctoral students who are U.S. citizens at the University of Kansas. Applications may be made through KU's academic programs or the program's campus office.

A board of trustees comprised of KU administrators and faculty members administers the program and selects the Fellows based on their leadership potential, academic records, career interests and drive. Managing trustee Howard Mossberg said the Selfs have asked the trustees to pay particular attention to students seeking careers in the natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, business and engineering. The trustees also welcome scholars in other areas of study.

"We believe the Self Fellowships will foster creative and leadership abilities," said Mossberg. "In short, it will produce doctorates who show the promise to leave a noteworthy legacy."

The Selfs' funds are managed by the KU Endowment Association, an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management foundation for the University of Kansas. Founded in 1891, the association is the oldest foundation of its type at a public, U.S. university and one of the largest.

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