Thanks to a generous gift from Michael “Mick” McGraw ’72, Olivet Nazarene University STEM students have the opportunity to participate in unique engagement opportunities outside the classroom. For the fifth year in a row, funding from the McGraw endowment has allowed the Walker School of STEM to enhance the student experience with a wide range of initiatives, including trips, competitions and research opportunities.
This year, available funds from the endowment nearly doubled, allowing full funding of 10 of the 20 proposed projects and partial funding of an additional five. Each proposal was submitted by Olivet STEM faculty with students in mind.
“Faculty-proposed engagement projects,” said Dr. Dale Hathaway, associate dean of the School of STEM, “tend to fall into various categories: conferences for students, field trips or experiences, overseas experiences (more expensive field trips or research opportunities) and student competitions.”
An example of a fully funded project was the proposal by engineering professor Dr. Michael Wade to fund seniors competing in an international design challenge. This year’s Life Giving Water International Student Design challenge involves designing a water treatment system for shallow wells in La Guajira, Colombia.
“Our team is tasked with building a system to treat water with salinity ranging from 1 to 5% (10,000 mg/L–50,000 mg/L),” Dr. Wade explained. “Students will submit their final design and project documentation in May 2025, and the winning design team will have the opportunity to travel to implement the system in August 2026.”
McGraw funding will also allow professor Madeline Shepley to take 30 students from her astronomy course to Purdue University to hear Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno speak on finding God in all aspects of creation.
“Brother Guy is a world-class astronomer specializing in meteorites and is a person of deep faith,” professor Shepley said. “I’m excited to have our students hear his testimony and see an example of science and faith working together.”
Other McGraw projects include funding student travel to the National Science Teaching Association annual meeting, the American Chemical Society meeting and the Women in Cybersecurity conference in Washington, D.C. This last is especially important to Dr. Jeff Rice ’99/’03 MBA, head of the computer science program.
“We’ve had an active campus chapter of the national organization Women in Cybersecurity for the past five years, but we’ve never had the funds available to support students attending the organization’s annual national conference,” he said.
This year, McGraw funding will allow the student president and treasurer of Olivet’s chapter to attend this importance conference.
“Conferences like these create communities of engagement, encouragement, and support and expose our students to industry, cyber professionals and potential employers,” Dr. Rice said.
The goal of the McGraw endowment is to enrich student experience.
“The variety of funded projects this year allows an amazing chance for students to extend their learning experiences beyond the classroom walls,” Dr. Hathaway said.
To learn more about Olivet’s areas of study in the sciences and engineering, contact the Office of Admissions at admissions@olivet.edu or 800-648-1463.
