When it comes to continuing to promote higher education locally, Ohio University’s nursing program received a million-dollar answer this summer.
OU alumnus Charles Beck and his wife, Judy, pledged $1 million to OU’s nursing program and the Kids on Campus program it runs.
Kids on Campus is a summer and after-school program for children in the Athens area. It provides tutoring and meals to students and exposes them to the college-campus enviroment.
“It’s an important part of the mission of the university,” said Becky Watts, chief of staff to OU President Roderick McDavis. “OU has an international reach, but we also serve a very important mission where we’re situated. (Kids on Campus is) making higher education accessible and something young people growing up in this region can identify with as something that is possible in their lives.”
The gift will be awarded to the program over a course of six years in installed payments, Watts said.
Beck, who graduated from OU in 1962, serves on the board of trustees of the Ohio University Foundation, according to a university news release.
The money from the $1 million gift will be divided between Kids on Campus, a nursing support fund and a nursing endowment, according to the release.
“We are convinced that the nursing and the Kids on Campus programs are well conceived, and we are impressed with the effectiveness in addressing needs that are not always the top priorities in today’s budget-stressed environment,” the Becks said, according to the release.
The gift will strengthen programs that support OU’s outreach goals, Watts said.
“Both of these programs are very important to the mission of the university,” she said. “To have the Becks step forward with such a great expression of support for the programs is so important, because it is such a core of our university, and those programs are so important to what we do.”
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