Generous gifts provide fellowships and scholarships

Gifts and bequests from alumni and friends play a vital role in helping us to maintain a level of excellence in teaching and research. We are very grateful for the following recent gifts and for your continuing generosity and commitment to our department.

R. Fenton-May (M.S. 1968, Ph.D. 1971) has given a gift of $125,000, which will be used to establish the R. Fenton-May Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship fund. The fund will be eligible for matching support from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Dr. Fenton-May is director of operations development of The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia. He has served as president, Coca-Cola China Ltd., Hong Kong; vice president and technical manager, Coca-Cola Central Pacific Ltd., Hong Kong; and manager, corporate quality assurance, among other posts at The Coca-Cola Company. He received a B.Sc. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and came to UW-Madison with a Fulbright grant for his graduate studies. In 1994 he was honored with a College of Engineering Distinguished Service Award.

The department received a bequest of over $30,300 from the estate of the late Professor Raymond W. Fahien of the University of Florida to be used for undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships. Ray spent the 1959-60 academic year as a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellow with our department while on leave from Iowa State University. He is best known for being the founding editor of the very successful journal "Chemical Engineering Education" from 1966 until his death in 1995. This journal has played a key role in providing a vehicle for exchanging ideas on teaching methods, course contents, curricular changes, and teachers of chemical engineering. Ray was a native of Missouri, did his undergraduate study in chemical engineering at Washington University, his M.S. at the University of Missouri, Rolla, and took his Ph.D. with Professor J. M. Smith at Purdue University.

A bequest from the late Charles Eck (B.S. 1940) will be used to provide graduate and undergraduate fellowships. A sum of $125,000 will establish the Charles Eck Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. This fund will be matched by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to provide an additional $125,000, creating an annual stipend of $12,500 for a deserving graduate student. The department will use approximately $12,000 to establish a Charles Eck Undergraduate Scholarship Fund, which will provide an annual undergraduate scholarship of about $600.

Charles Eck received an M.S. degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He worked at Monsanto Research Corporation in Miamisburg, Ohio before his retirement.