“$5 million gift from Hebron Brick CEO is largest ever for MSUM, will fund business school scholarships”
On Tuesday morning, MSUM President Anne Blackhurst unveiled the Paseka School of Business to an atrium packed with business students, staff and faculty.
“The naming of the school was secondary to what my purpose in this gift is,” Rodney Paseka said. “This is less about me than it is those students.”
At least 80 percent of the endowment created by the couple’s donation will go toward scholarships for business school students. The rest could go to research, faculty positions, program development or other uses.
Paseka graduated from MSUM in 1971 with accounting and business administration degrees. His wife attended the college, then joined its staff for 15 years as a senior clerk in various offices.
In addition to keeping students out of debt, one of Paseka’s goals with this donation is to inspire other MSUM alums to “pay it forward” by creating scholarships, he said.
Leaders of the school’s alumni foundation also hope for that outcome.
Foundation President Scott Nelson said the gift would serve “as a call to action for the many of us that have been sitting on the sidelines, and now it’s our time to follow your lead and consider major gifts of our own.”
The gift is a strong start in the university’s campaign to raise its endowment to $60 million by 2024.
As of June 30, MSUM’s endowment was $15.6 million – small compared to similarly sized public universities around the state, as well as neighboring schools.
An audited financial statement shows that the North Dakota State University foundation had net assets of about $122 million at the end of 2013.
Concordia College’s endowment reached an all-time high of about $101.7 million in 2013-14, the annual report said.
Raising MSUM’s endowment to a level where it would make money on itself would improve “everything,” foundation Vice President Laura Huth said in an interview. “Scholarships, program support. The greater the endowment, the greater the support we can provide.”
The gift from the Pasekas is the same size as the largest announced gift for Concordia College. That was $5 million from Earl and Dorothy Olson to build an athletic complex called Olson Forum, which was completed in 1994.
Spokeswoman Amy Kelly said Concordia has received larger gifts, though, for which the donors and amounts are confidential.
NDSU’s largest gift is $10 million from Sanford Health in 2010, which went toward the under-construction Sanford Health Athletic Complex.
At MSUM, the second-largest gifts are now $2 million from Russell and Ann Gerdin for the Gerdin Wellness Center, and $2 million from Sanford Health for athletic scholarships.
MSUM’s foundation has to raise $4.5 million each year to meet its goal, Nelson said, so the Pasekas’ gift puts them ahead of schedule.
And Rodney Paseka suggested this gift might not be their last.
“I’m going to say that this is the first gift, and we’ll leave it there,” he said.