WOW! A #flashback to Winter of 2012 when the Community Foundation of Louisville hosted an event at the Louisville Slugger Museum. It was
Liz Hack and Susan Griffin at an event for the Community Foundation of Louisville. Picture provided by Shannon Kisselbaugh
Spalding University
As graduation season comes to an end for secondary and post secondary schools in Kentucky, we thought we would take a look back at one of our education clients. JoAnn Rooney, then president of Spalding, invited GF&M to provide additional leadership for an endowment campaign. The campaign was to directly support the students through their scholarship fund. Since Susan Griffin is a proud graduate of the university and it’s one of the oldest educational institutions in the city of Louisville, we were thrilled to be a part of the effort. In a limited time frame, we were able to complete the goal of one million dollars and secured a matching grant from the Brown Foundation. The campaign was supported by fabulous community volunteers, like Mac and Tori McClure and through their leadership the campaign was a complete success.
The campaign in 2008 was a great experience for GF&M and personally for Susan to be back on campus. It is always exciting to work with such dedicated educators like those at Spalding.
Since 2008 went so well, in April 2013 GF&M was again invited to facilitate a strategic planning retreat with the Advancement Team. Under the new leadership of president Tori McClure, we spent 2 days in closed door sessions reviewing and updating the goals for Spalding’s future. The pennant pictured above was a thank you gift from the entire Advancement Team to Susan Griffin, who acted as the facilitator for the retreat. Each member of the team signed the pennant. Honored and flattered by the gift, she keeps that pennant in her office.
This week we are headed back to ’97. It’s the year Kentucky first hosted the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
1997 Intel ISEF poster
GF&M helped two Kentucky Governors and the Mayor of Louisville in bringing the world’s largest competition for high school students in math, science and engineering to Louisville not once but twice. I personally believe that this week long event helped strengthen the perception that Kentucky is a state of innovation and technology. At the time, some 1200 student competitors from 35 foreign countries came to Louisville. There were over 1000 judges and some 1500 volunteers. Now, the competition has well over 80 countries involved with many more judges and volunteers.
The Opening Ceremonies for the event were held at night on the Churchill Downs track. It was the first time Churchill had ever hosted an evening event and the first time the general public were allowed to walk on the same track used for horse racing at the Kentucky Derby.
Susan Griffin with six Nobel Laureates who were invited to Kentucky as part of the Intel ISEF in 1997.
As a part of the Intel ISEF 1997, GF&M helped to invite six Nobel Laureates. They visited Jefferson County Public School classrooms to interact with middle and high school students. This marked the largest gathering of Nobels in the state of Kentucky and the first time Nobels were involved with secondary school students. What a first that was for the state of KY. I bet the guys from “The Big Bang Theory” can’t say they’ve met so many Nobels.
The 1997 Intel ISEF really held the bar high for future fairs. With the support of Kentucky’s Govenor, we increased the number of scholarships awarded to the student finalist. That had never been done before. The result provided Kentucky Higher Education with the opportunity of awarding ISEF finalist to come to Kentucky for their bachelors degree. Talk about injecting international award winning innovators directly into our higher education systems and ultimately our economy.
Because of GF&M’s leadership during the 1997 Intel ISEF the Host Committee for the 2001 Intel ISEF requested our services in support of their fair in San Jose, California.