UI College of Engineering receives
$100,000 in scholarship gifts

Posted April 23, 2007

IOWA CITY -- The University of Iowa College of Engineering has two more permanently endowed scholarships to offer in-state students, thanks to two gifts totaling $100,000.

• Arthur Donald “Don” Sexton of Newton, Iowa, established the A. Donald Sexton Engineering Scholarship with a $50,000 gift.
  
  
• Koss Construction Company of Topeka, Kan., and family and friends of the late Ray M. Collins of Urbandale, Iowa, endowed the Ray Collins Scholarship in Collins’ memory, with gifts totaling $50,000.
  

The Sexton Scholarship will support deserving UI mechanical engineering students from Iowa who have completed an internship with or worked for an Iowa-based company as part of their engineering education.

Sexton earned two mechanical engineering degrees from the UI, a bachelor’s degree in 1950, and a master’s degree in 1951. He worked for Maytag Corporation in Newton for many years before retiring in 1984, and was married to Melba Sexton, who died in 2003.

The Collins Scholarship honors the memory of Ray M. Collins, who enjoyed a long career with Koss Construction after a career as a civil engineer in Iowa. Because Collins believed that engineers need to be excellent communicators in addition to well-trained engineers, the scholarship is intended to support students from Iowa who serve as peer consultants in the College of Engineering’s Hanson Technical Communication Center, which helps students develop excellent written and oral communication skills.

Collins retired from Koss in 1992 as vice president after 20 years with the company, and served on its board of directors until his death in 2005 at the age of 82. He was married to Betty L. Collins of Urbandale.

Dean P. Barry Butler of the UI College of Engineering said the scholarships are essential to the college’s mission of serving Iowans through innovative engineering education for in-state students.

“These endowed scholarships will enable us to attract more talented students from our state to study engineering here at Iowa, where we offer a unique, student-centered educational experience,” Butler said. “We are extremely grateful to Don Sexton, Koss Construction and Ray Collins’ family and friends for ensuring that we have these crucial scholarship resources to offer our home-state students.”

The UI acknowledges the UI Foundation as the preferred channel for private contributions that benefit all areas of the university. For more information about the UI Foundation, visit its web site at www.uiowafoundation.org.

Contact Information

Kevin Collins
Executive Director of Development, College of Engineering
(800) 648-6973 or (319) 335-3305

Additional information about supporting the UI College of Engineering also is available on this site.