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Innovator
Vol. 35 No. 2 - Winter 04-05:
Support From Individuals
With competition for charitable giving at an all-time high, development professionals must be creative in tailoring programs that maximize individual and corporate gifts.
Sometimes, though, there are people who just give. They give for a variety of reasons, often stemming from their own experience at the University, and they help tend the foundation from which great programs, like the School of Education, grow.
Jim Kamman, like a lot of people, had a plan when he began his degree in education. He was a member of the UM wrestling team and thought his future would include teaching and coaching at the high school level. His plan—also like a lot of people’s—changed upon graduation.
After finishing his Bachelor’s in Education, with certification (’67), Kamman enlisted in the Marine Corps. During his four years in the Corps, Kamman served as a member of his unit’s legal team, and when he returned to El Toro, CA., chose to pursue a career in law. He graduated from Pepperdine University Law School in 1976, and eventually found his niche in tax law. He formed his own firm in 1996.
Kamman did not give up on teaching, however. He went on to get a master’s degree in taxation at Golden Gate University and taught in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California Irvine for a couple of years, and for 14 years as an adjunct faculty member in their graduate tax program. He said 50 percent of his students spoke English as a second language, which constantly presented challenges. “Our tax law is complex enough for our own citizens, let alone those from other countries,” he said.
Kamman began giving to the University shortly after graduation. “Just small amounts, of course, but in the last 15 years I have become a relatively large donor.” His reason for giving is two-fold. “In everything I have done, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned—from my father, my coaches—is that you gotta put back in, you can’t just take out,” Kamman said. His giving is also based upon the belief that anyone who wants to go to the University of Michigan should be able to go. A lack of money should not restrict someone from pursuing an education. Kamman is helping his own son pay for his education, and said he finds it pretty amazing that now, when you factor in inflation, you can spend as much in one year as he spent in four years for his own college education. Which is why he sees it as critical that people support education. “The state legislature doesn’t have the money, it has to come from individuals.”
One such individual, in every sense of the word, is known as “Michigan Mary.” Mary Douglas (MA, 1952) took on that moniker when she moved from Michigan to Los Angeles in 1953. “When I moved to Los Angeles, people used to ask where I was from, and soon enough I became known as Michigan Mary.” To reinforce the pride in her Michigan roots, Douglas has a vanity plate that reads WLVRN, and her phone number translates to 7UM-GOGO.
Douglas, a Monroe native, pursued her teaching career on the West Coast. After teaching elementary students for five years in Michigan she spent the next 37 years in California. In addition to teaching children, Douglas also spent time teaching adults in amnesty programs for immigrants in Los Angeles, and in-service teacher training programs. “I taught elementary education by day, and teachers and parents at night,” while also raising her son as a single mother.
Douglas retired to Arizona in 1990. “I dedicated my life to teaching other people’s children for 42 years,” she said, “and I continue today through philanthropy.” Each of the programs she is involved with—from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), to Delta Kappa Gamma, and the UM Alumni clubs of West Valley, Calif., and Pheonix, AZ.—has a scholarship component, Douglas said.
Although a regular donor to both the SOE and the Rackham Graduate School since she left the University, Douglas said her giving increased when she received her first application for football tickets thirty years ago. “I had been giving a certain amount each year, but when that application came, I bumped it up.” Douglas is clearly a huge sports fan. Describing one weekend this fall, she said, “we went to a hockey game at Yost on Friday night, then the San Diego State game Saturday afternoon, watched Eastern Michigan play Toledo Saturday night and then took in the Lions game Sunday afternoon.” Phew. “I have to squeeze a lot in while I am in town because I don’t get there very often.” She predicts that the men’s basketball program will be ranked in the top 25 this year, and is looking forward to attending the upcoming UCLA-Michigan game.
One of Douglas’ contemporaries, Joan Neil (AB LSA, Ed. Certt., ’52) sees her family’s support of the University as “one small thing we can do,” to promote greater understanding in a climate of political rhethoric that is creating increasing divisiveness in this country. “I feel more strongly now, in the current political and social culture we live in, that we really need good teachers,” Neil said.
The Joan Nelson, Herbert R. Neil Jr. Endowed Scholarship was first awarded in 2003 and is a continuing endowment in the School of Education for instate tuition for certification. “We thought after this most recent political campaign that perhaps the scholarship should go to someone who plans to teach social studies,” she said with a laugh.
The Neils have given to the University for quite some time. Both are graduates of the University. Joan received her degree in speech pathology, while her husband Herbert, earned his bachelors, and doctorate in Economics. She worked as a school speech therapist at the elementary level in Michigan after graduation, did some graduate work in Rochester, NY., and has lived for the last three decades in Deerfield, IL.
Joan Neil said that prior to initiating the endowment their gifts usually went to LSA, but at the beginning of the capital campaign in 2000, Herbert told her “it was her turn,” meaning it was time to give to the School of Education. “We talked to the development director about our options, and I really believe in education,” Neil explained, “so if we could help someone who really wants to teach, then that’s what I wanted to do.”
Her children’s experience in high school is the standard she thinks all teachers ought to strive for, and that should be supported financially. “I was very impressed with my daughter’s history teacher, with her method, which stressed theoretical as well as factual information, rather than simply what my kids referred to as ‘multiple guess.’” Neil said high school kids don’t always appreciate their education at the time, but eventually they understand. “When my daughter went on to college I remember her saying that she could really appreciate that teacher now, and she went on to major in history!” Teaching that leaves that kind of an impression is what Neil and her husband are supporting through their endowed scholarship.
These donors play an integral role in helping the SOE fullfill its mission of improving and fortifying K-16 education for all students by supporting important programs within the University like student financial aid, professional service activities that bring today’s students together with today’s practitioners, cutting edge technology and research, and teacher preparation programs. Creative giving ideas will always have a place in University development programs, but so too will individuals like Jim Kamman, Mary Douglas and the Neils, who just give.
by Peggy Herron
This article appears in the Winter 04-05 edition of the Innovator
