USI lands $2.5M gift to support scholarships
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The University of Southern Indiana Foundation has received a $2.55 million gift from the Lois M. Collier Charitable Trust to establish a tuition-assistance endowment.
The Lois M. and Reginald B. Collier Family Presidential Scholarship Endowment awards will support the university’s Presidential Scholars program in perpetuity, the university said in a news release.
The competitive awards for Indiana residents cover full tuition and housing costs during fall and spring semesters, The 10 scholars are chosen at the beginning of each fall semester.
“Lois and Reginald Collier valued higher education and understood the transformation it brings to one’s life,” university President Ronald Rochon said in the release. “The Collier family’s investment in our University will impact students now and for generations to come. We are thankful for their generosity, but more than anything, we are thankful for their confidence in a USI education.”
The Colliers in 1974 founded Research Systems Corp., an Evansville-based advertising research organization known as The ARS Group. Reginald served as chairman.
Lois, who died in 2013, was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Reginald, who died in 2004, graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School in Boston.
“The University of Southern Indiana Foundation is deeply grateful to the co-trustees of the Lois M. Collier Charitable Trust, Robert W. Swan and Daniel Hanley,” USI Foundation President David Bower said.
Founded in 1965, USI enrolls nearly 9,300 dual credit, undergraduate and graduate students in more than 130 areas of study.