Penn State's Smeal College Graduate Challenges Honors Program Alumni With Scholarship Gift

Penn State's Smeal College Graduate Challenges Honors Program Alumni With Scholarship Gift

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- Richard Squires and his wife, Pamela, have made a challenge gift in support of scholarships for undergraduates in Penn State University's Smeal College of Business. The Squires will donate up to $100,000 on the condition that honors graduates of the Smeal College and Honors graduates contribute a total of $500,000 in new scholarship funds.

"I gained an enormous amount from the Accounting Honors program at Smeal," says Richard Squires, who graduated from the program with a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1979. "It prepared me to be successful in business and life. I know that others feel the same and will give back to help undergraduate students. A big portion of any success that I have achieved is due to the caring and assistance that I received from others, and certainly this was present in my participation in the honors program."

The Squires' gift will endow a Trustee Scholarship. Unlike other scholarships, contributions to the Trustee Scholarship program are matched by funds from Penn State, adding 5 percent of the original gift each year to the spendable income from the endowment. The University has allocated at least $1 million for Trustee Scholarships established in the 2002-03 fiscal year and will add a minimum of $1 million each year through 2006-07, making at least $5 million available in matching funds.

Trustee Scholarships require a minimum gift of $50,000, payable over five years.

"We wanted to give something back to Penn State in a way that would help talented students directly," says Richard Squires. "We were interested in creating a scholarship of some type, and then we learned about the gift-matching part of the Trustee Scholarship Program. We decided that this would be an excellent return on our philanthropic investment and allow us to help students immediately."

After graduating from Penn State, Richard Squires went on to earn his M.B.A. from the Harvard School of Business in 1983. After starting his career with entities associated with the Bass Family and Rainwater, Inc., he founded his own real estate investment firm, RS Holdings, Inc. in 1988 and co-founded SPI Holdings, LLC, a nationwide real estate investment company in 1995. The Squires live in Dallas with their two children, Chase and Annika.

The Smeal Honors Program in Accounting preceded the establishment of the University Scholars Program in 1980. The Schreyer Honors College was established in 1997 to provide comprehensive honors education. Students in the Smeal College may simultaneously be members of the Schreyer Honors College and pursue a broad set of opportunities for study, research, and scholarly exploration in the major of their choice.

"What makes this gift so special," says Dr. Judy Olian, dean of Penn State's Smeal College, "is that Pamela and Richard Squires are not only giving their own funds but, through their challenge to others, will motivate them to support many more students with scholarship funds."

Trustee scholarships are directed to students who have great financial need, something that appealed very much to Pamela and Richard. One of the features of the program is that the matching funds will be available for spending very soon after confirmation of the pledge and guidelines and will be awarded in the name of the donor's endowment.

During 2001-02, 76 percent of Penn State undergraduates received $405 million in student financial aid. However, two-thirds of those funds were in the form of student loans, resulting in an average student loan debt of $17,900 at graduation. The Trustee Scholarship Program, when fully endowed at $100 million, will increase the amount of privately funded endowed spending on academic scholarships, as opposed to loans, by 40 percent.

Editors: For more information about the scholarship program, contact Phil Bolda at 814-863-0345 or pxb36@psu.edu .