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Alumni Magazine

COE students and faculty members are the real winners on record-setting Day of Giving

Hand holding a red card with an outline of a howling wolf cutout so as to see the view of the brick building and landscape behind. Day of Giving 3/22/2023 #GivingPack is written in white letters on the card.

Before this year, the College of Engineering’s best Day of Giving was 2021. That day ended with $6.1 million from 1,615 gifts. Now, the College has a new goal to beat in coming years: $6.5 million from 1,661 gifts.

Thanks to an outpouring of community support, the College finished in second place for most gifts received during the 2023 Day of Giving.

This groundswell of gifts ensured that the departments met their challenge goals. The Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) finished the day atop the departmental leaderboard with 283 gifts and met a challenge from the department’s advisory board to unlock an extra $19,950.

The Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE)’s advisory board set a match challenge for an additional $17,100, and alumnus David Whitley created a challenge for the Department of Computer Science for an extra $10,000. Alumni Calvin Carter and John Edmond donated $10,000 through a match challenge to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in memory of their friend, alumnus and Wolfspeed co-founder John Palmour. The departments also competed for shares of Dean Louis Martin-Vega’s prize money. Like previous years, $15,000 of the dean’s discretionary fund was up for grabs. CCEE took home the largest portion of the prize, followed by ISE and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Day of Giving 2023 final numbers infographic with white lettering, red background with a variety of scences including the wolf at Talley Student Center, Fitts-Woolard Hall and the Central Campus entrance sign to NC State University.

Among the College’s challenge wins, one stands out for the sheer distance traveled to make it happen. Daniel Findley, alumnus and senior research associate at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education, won a social media challenge for CCEE. He shared his photo of the Taj Mahal from Agra, India.

The College also finished in second place for dollars raised on the day, thanks in part to several generous gifts. One anonymous donor gave $978,000 to College-wide scholarship initiatives early in the day.

Two major gifts went to the Department of Computer Science (CSC). Alumnus Tony Brown and the Brown family made a $1 million pledge to the department to create a named distinguished professorship, a named graduate fellowship and a named undergraduate scholarship. Alumnus Keith Collins and his wife, Margie, announced a $2.8 million increase of their existing planned estate gift to the department to create a $2.5 million named endowed department chair and increase the funding for a $1 million planned distinguished professorship already in place.

Alumni, students, faculty and staff members, friends and parents gave 16,774 gifts to the University for a total of $34,019,746 to beat last year’s totals for both and to set the record for most gifts given in a total day.