KBOR > News > 2003 > Release

June 26, 2003

REGENTS INSTITUTIONS RECEIVE GIFTS FOR TOP LEADERS

>>> Related: KBOR Announces Compensation for State University CEO's

TOPEKA –The Kansas Board of Regents announced at the organization’s June meeting that private gifts will enhance the salaries of the top leaders at three Regents institutions.

Charles W. Oswald of Edina, Minn., a University of Kansas economics alumnus and native Kansan, has given $1 million each to the Kansas University Endowment Association, the Kansas State University Foundation and the Wichita State University Foundation. The gifts will provide compensation in addition to state salaries for the KU chancellor and the presidents at Kansas State University and Wichita State University. Income earned on the endowed funds will generate approximately $50,000 per year for each leader.

Oswald said he established the endowed funds to help retain and attract the best leaders possible for Kansas research universities.

"I’ve been keeping tabs on events in my home state of Kansas," he said. "I think that these three university leaders are doing great jobs for their institutions right now. We Kansans can be proud of them and the universities they oversee – regardless of where we live. Keeping top leaders is important, and these endowments are meant to assist the state in doing so."

The universities’ leaders are Robert Hemenway at KU, Jon Wefald at K-State and Donald Beggs at Wichita State. The endowed funds for the three institutions will be the first such funds in Kansas history to enhance the salaries of top leaders at Regents research institutions. They are similar to private gifts that establish distinguished professorships and endowed chairs, which provide stipends beyond state support for faculty members and deans. Such funds have become common at universities and colleges nationwide.
Board President and CEO Reggie Robinson thanked Oswald on behalf of the Regents and the three universities.

"Charley Oswald demonstrated great foresight and generosity when he identified this need and sought to address it without being asked," Robinson said. "These endowed funds for the leaders of the state’s three research universities are a vote of confidence for the work Chancellor Hemenway and Presidents Wefald and Beggs are doing. Like funds for professorships, they will assist us greatly in attracting new candidates to these positions in future years."

Oswald was the chairman and chief executive officer of National Computer Systems, now NCS Pearson, for more than 20 years and is now the chairman of Rotherwood Corp. in Minnesota. A native of Hutchinson, Kan., Oswald served for two years in the U.S. Marines before enrolling at KU in 1948. After graduating from KU in 1951, he earned a master’s in business administration in 1953 from Harvard. He married the late Sally Pegues Oswald, his high school sweetheart, who graduated from KU with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1950.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Dick Carter, Jr.
Director for External Relations
785-296-1486

February 11, 2004 12:32 PM