Koch Industries donates $814,000 to K-State Office of Diversity
BY BILL WILSON
The Wichita Eagle
Koch Industries and the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation have donated a total of $814,000 to the Kansas State University Office of Diversity.
The donation includes a combined gift of $514,000 to help the college increase multicultural student enrollment in its business administration and engineering schools.
Koch Industries has also donated $300,000 for future diversity scholarship support.
The gifts are a continuation of Koch’s support for the business administration school, promoting the attendance, graduation and placement of more “historically under-represented students,” the university said in a news release.
The company and the foundation, honoring the parents of Charles and David Koch, are a continuation of the family’s commitment to education and growing an educated workforce, said Susan Addington, a Koch spokeswoman.
“Education obviously is providing opportunities,” Addington said. “We target education as a place to level the playing field by providing opportunities for kids to explore and pursue their interests.”
Koch also prefers to hire workers with Midwestern values, Addington said.
“We need an educated workforce,” she said. “It does transform people by exposing them to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new connections.”
The donations cover Koch IMPACT scholarships, the Koch Diversity Faculty Fellow in the business administration school, Project IMPACT Relationship Recruiting for multicultural students pursuing accounting or finance degrees and the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation College for a Day Institute, one-day on-campus programs for prospective high school and community college students.
Posted on Wed, Sep. 26, 2012 11:20 AM
Read more here:
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/26...#storylink=cpy