Del Lienemann, president and manager of the Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation, announced Saturday a $250,000 challenge gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation to assist with a landmark fund-raising initiative.
This gift supports the Charlotte Peck Lienemann and Alumni Distinguished Chair in Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing. The Foundation gift will match $250,000 of private gifts received between now and Jan. 1, 2000, and will enable the college to reach its $1 million fund-raising goal established to endow and support this faculty position.
The distinguished chair is named in honor of Lienemann s wife, a 1945 College of Nursing graduate who died in March 1995, as well as other College of Nursing alumni.
“Mrs. Abbott was fond of Charlotte. The two of them even shared the same birthday,” Lienemann said. “Mrs. Abbott would have wanted the chair to be fully funded by the year 2000, so this should accomplish that result.”
Under the terms of the challenge gift, the money will be available as soon as the University of Nebraska Foundation obtains the matching $250,000, even if that date is prior to Jan. 1, 2000. The Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation and Lienemann Charitable Foundation have given more than $200,000 to the initiative since its beginning.
The relationship between the Lienemanns and the Abbotts began in 1947 when they became business associates and friends in Lincoln. Mrs. Abbott, who died in 1992, and her husband, Christopher, who died in 1954, had banking and ranching interests in western Nebraska. This association led to Del Lienemann’s involvemennt in helping establish the Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation in 1972.
The announcement of the gift was made June 7 at the College of Nursing’s 80th anniversary celebration and annual alumni reunion in Omaha. Ada M. Lindsey, Ph.D., dean of the UNMC College of Nursing, said the college has met its $500,000 interim endowment goal for the distinguished chair initiative and can now endow the chair and recruit a prominent nursing scholar to the position. She said completion of the $1 million fund- raising initiative will provide additional support for this faculty member s educational and research activities which will strengthen the entire program.
“The quality of student learning is influenced greatly by the quality of the faculty, and having an endowed distinguished faculty position such as this allows us to recruit exceptional faculty expertise to our college,” Dr. Lindsey said. “We are extremely fortunate to have this new $250,000 challenge opportunity.”
Since the distinguished chair initiative began in 1989, nearly 1,000 alumni, faculty and friends have committed $572,250 in outright gifts, deferred gifts and pledge commitments. Reaching the $1 million goal will further distinguish the college as one of the few nursing schools nationwide committed to creating endowed professorships, Dr. Lindsey said.
The UNMC College of Nursing has campus locations in Omaha, Lincoln, Kearney and Scottsbluff and is the largest nursing school in the state. It is the only nursing program in Nebraska to offer undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees.
The University of Nebraska Foundation is a non-profit corporation supplementing faculty, students, facilities and programs at the University of Nebraska through gifts by alumni, friends, corporations and other foundations.