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SOU dishes on details of Lithia Motors donation By Kevin Opsahl Oct 10, 2022 12:30 AM A A Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey, left, listens to Bryan DeBoer, president and CEO of Lithia Motors, when it was announced the company would be donating $12 million over 10 years to fund scholarships and special programs at SOU. [Photo by Denise Baratta] Weeks after Southern Oregon University announced a $12 million donation from Lithia Motors, the single largest gift in the university’s history, school officials are sharing more details about what it all means for faculty and students. The thrust of the gift, announced in a public ceremony Sept. 14, is the Lithia and GreenCars Momentum Fund, which will pay for a $5 million scholarship program, a $4 million institute and a $1 million “president’s fund.” Lithia Motors and its electric vehicles division, GreenCars, additionally pledged to support electric vehicles and charging stations throughout campus and give an additional $2 million to the annual Lithia & GreenCars/Raider Golf Tournament, which raised $600,000 this year. “Even though we have a 30,000-foot view of (the donation), the details of it are still in progress,” SOU President Rick Bailey said. “I think we’ll continue to keep the students updated as this thing evolves.” Institute for Applied Sustainability Vincent Smith, who has a variety of titles, including director of SOU’s Division of Business, Communication and the Environment — and Becs Walker, SOU’s sustainability and recycling manager, had been interested in starting an institute for some time. The SOU Foundation played matchmaker when conversations began some six months ago with Lithia Motors over the need to start it, according to Smith. “Both Becs and I had been looking for additional resources to move that project forward,” he said, “so when (DeBoer’s) interests began to focus on sustainability, they then paired us up.” Walker, who will be the institute’s “distinguished administrator,” spoke about the value of the new SOU entity, even when the university already has numerous sustainability initiatives underway. “It can enhance and go beyond and also solidify some of our ambitions and how we’re implementing them,” she said. “Sustainability can be quite a theoretical concept; here, it’s trying to make it real by saying, ‘We are going to apply this.’” The work will be applied by four “distinguished faculty members” — Jessica Piekielek, a cultural anthropologist; Christopher Lucas, assistant professor in the communication, media and cinema program; Bret Anderson, associate professor of economics; and Pavlina McGrady, associate professor of business. “If you were to ask them to define ‘sustainability,’ they would give you four very different answers,” Smith said. “I feel like that’s an important thing to do in the inaugural year of defining what this institute will be.” As part of the professors’ new assignments, they will be teaching less in order to handle the amount of projects generated alongside students within the institute. Some examples of applied sustainability efforts the institute could work on might include GIS mapping of burn scars of wildfires, campus water conservation and building affordable housing to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards. Smith noted the institute — with no plans as of now to occupy a future building on campus — is a partnership with Lithia Motors, allowing the company to contribute sustainable project ideas. “They’re contributing financial capital, but more importantly, to me, they’re contributing human capital,” Smith said. Lithia Motors plans to contribute to the institute’s work by creating a conference on sustainability, bringing corporate and academic leaders to the valley, and creating a new SOU “academic credential” in corporate sustainability, along with a site used to demonstrate projects underway at the institute. SOU’s Lithia and GreenCars Scholarship Program Depending on the circumstances of the first-generation and other underrepresented SOU student populations who qualify, each student could be awarded up to $15,000 per academic year. “Some students are going to come with Pell grants and other grants,” said Neil Woolf, vice president of enrollment management and student affairs. “Some students are going to need up to $15,000; others won’t need that much, and so it will just kind of depend on their circumstances.” For now, the program will accept anywhere from six to eight students per year, but that number could grow up to 35 over the next few years, according to Woolf. “We already had a number of students who applied for scholarships (this year) who are eligible, so we used that as our applicant base to select the students that are going to receive (the new scholarship) this fall,” Woolf said. Coupled with the aid is a “leadership development program” those students can enroll in. This includes monthly meetings with their peers who share similar interests, and paid internships through Lithia Motors and GreenCars. Study abroad opportunities will also be available to the scholarship recipients. For Woolf, the scholarship program born out of the Lithia Motors and GreenCars gift is a great addition to others SOU already provides, including one for Northern California students to receive resident tuition. “It’s phenomenal; it’s life-changing,” Woolf said of Lithia Motors’ scholarship program. “What this will do is help students who may not have had the chance to get the support to not only graduate college, but then have a career pathway with Lithia.” The Lithia and GreenCars President’s Fund This $1 million fund, utilized at the discretion of SOU President Rick Bailey, will go toward developing projects the university’s newest leader believes are important. The funding will be doled out at $100,000 for 10 years, according to the SOU president. “That is funding that can help us with the initiatives that we are putting in place to change the fiscal model of the university,” Bailey said. He was referring to his call at the start of the school year for SOU leaders to engage in a “strategic realignment to solidify (the) financial future” of SOU. The plan calls for less reliance on state funds and tuition dollars, instead finding new, ongoing initiatives to keep the university running. “The goal of the innovation fund is to engage in entrepreneurial venues that help to decrease the university’s dependence on increasing tuition dollars,” Bailey said. “Everything from the senior residence project at Cascade Hall, to the workforce training center, to the university business district — all of those things may be targeted for the president’s innovation fund.” He stressed the fund won’t fund pay for these proposed projects entirely; rather, the fund could be used as “seed money” to get them off the ground. Reach reporter Kevin Opsahl at 541-776-4476 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @KevJourno.