Female donors group formed at OU

BY JAMES S. TYREE Comments 0
Published: November 8, 2009

NORMAN — The University of Oklahoma has received more than 9,000 major gifts over the years from women in their own names, but OU never had an organization specifically for female donors.

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The University of Oklahoma Women’s Philanthropy Network was created this year to encourage women to become more involved at OU, said Jill Quintana Hughes of the OU Development Office.

She and Les Risser are chairmen for a free, public fall symposium scheduled Nov. 19 at the Oklahoma Memorial Union, which will serve as the network’s first major event.

"The purpose is to get more women engaged in the university,” Hughes said, "whether it’s as donors, board members, speaking in our classrooms or just being more knowledgeable about programs.”

OU President David Boren and OU women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale will speak at the symposium that’s open to women and men, followed by a keynote address by Angela White of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University.

The afternoon will have breakout sessions featuring generations of Oklahoma women who have given to OU, along with accounts from faculty, students and graduates of how giving to the university has affected their lives.

Hughes said women who are juggling careers with parenting, caring for their own parents and other activities can draw encouragement from hearing stories from other women who have given time and resources to the university and elsewhere in the community. The OU network expects to have meetings in Oklahoma and Texas after the fall symposium.

While the OU network is new, the practice of women using their time and money to benefit the university is not. In 1927, according to the network’s Web site, Alice Hurley Mackey orchestrated the meeting of E.E. Dale and Frank Phillips, a connection that led to the gift that founded OU’s Western History Collection.

In more recent times, the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education last year became OU’s first college named after a woman, the renovated Old Science Hall was dedicated this fall as Beatrice Carr Wallace Old Science Hall, and numerous other women continue to give to colleges, programs and scholarship funds of their choice.

To register, go to www.ou.edu/women.