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University of Akron students will benefit for generations to come, thanks to two recent gifts from alumni.
The College of Business Administration has received $1.2 million from the estate of the late Sidney Walker to endow scholarships.
The Sidney R. Walker Endowed Scholarship Fund will award scholarships annually to UA business students, with preference given to students in entrepreneurial studies and marketing, according to James Barnett, interim business dean.
“This scholarship is a tribute to Sidney and Cora Walker's belief in higher education,” Barnett says. “They wanted their generous gift to enable deserving students to achieve their goal of a business degree from The University of Akron.”
Walker, a 1931 UA biology graduate and Massillon resident, was a long-time employee of the Twin Coach Co. in Kent. Walker, who died in November 2001 at the age of 94, established the scholarship fund in 1996.
Longtime University benefactor Paul E. Martin has established The Dr. Paul E. Martin Endowment for Conflict Management. The $200,000 grant will support the operations of the Center for Conflict Management, which is jointly managed by the political science and sociology departments.
“It is my hope that the continued growth of UA’s Center for Conflict Management can help lead to a sober analysis of conflicts at all levels, and more cooperative approaches to the conflicts that plague relationships in families, communities and among nations,” says Martin.
The recent endowment — along with Martin’s gifts to fund The Dr. Paul E. Martin Scholarship for Conflict Management and The Dr. Paul E. Martin Endowed Chair for Conflict Management — will support the center’s efforts to recruit and retain superior students and faculty members, as well as efforts in teaching, mediation training, internships, research, conferences, debates, workshops and other activities.
“Events in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 confirmed my belief in the role of our universities to provide essential programs that explore and teach methods by which conflict can be managed,” Martin says.
Director of the center, William T. Lyons Jr., notes that, “Paul Martin is a man of integrity and responsibility who firmly believes in, and is committed to, the peaceful resolution of conflict.
“Dr. Martin asked me what the center needs to go to the next level,” relates Lyons, also an associate professor of political science. “I told him we need to send students to workshops, and sponsor our own conferences. The best way to do that was to create an endowment for operational funds to allow us to run the program in that direction.”
Martin has donated more than $6.5 million to the University. Recent gifts have included $200,000 to the Department of Biology to further develop field studies at the Bath Nature Preserve, and $170,000 for the construction of the Lewis C. Turner Amphitheatre at the new Buchtel College of Arts & Sciences building.
Martin, a 1935 UA graduate and Bath resident, was named vice president and general manager of City Chevrolet Co. in Akron in 1949. By 1958 he opened his own Chevrolet dealership in Warren — Martin Chevrolet Inc., which has become the largest automobile dealer in eastern Ohio. His honors include an Alumni Honor Award and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He was president of The University of Akron Foundation Board of Trustees from 1991-99.
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