Lilly Endowment awards IU $26 million grant

IU just got $26 million richer. \nThanks to a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indianapolis-based philanthropic foundation that supports the causes of religion, education and community development, IU will use the money for three purposes.\nFirst, $10 million will be allocated toward the funding of six new research positions in neuroscience, split between the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and Bloomington campuses. The money will be divided to hire research staff and do whatever is requested by each researcher.\n"The intent is to find six leading researchers in their fields and bring them to Indiana," said Larry MacIntyre, director of Media Relations for IU.\nThe second portion of the grant will award $10 million to the Hoosier Presidential Scholars Program, which offers annual scholarships of $4,000 to $8,000 for Indiana high school students planning to attend any IU campus. \nMacIntyre said the program is highly competitive and will be determined through grades, applications, essays and leadership roles. \n"The goal is to recruit these in state high achieving high school students," he said.\nFor the next five years, the grant will reward $1 million each year to the arts and humanities program to assist in programs involving music composition, seminars, meetings and bringing notable artists and musicians to IU for lectures and conferences.\n"(IU President Adam) Herbert wanted to be sure that he is doing things to maintain the high quality and energy in innovation that we have in our arts and humanities programs," MacIntyre said. "This will give the faculty over the next five years some additional resources."\nThe University-wide program will be directed by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Dr. Michael McRobbie. \nMacIntyre said the final $1 million will support associated activities in furtherance of the initiative's goals and objectives.\nThe Lilly Endowment, created in 1937 by Eli Lilly and Company, has consistently provided IU with millions of dollars in funding for research. Since 1996, the Lilly Endowment has given almost $1 billion to higher education in Indiana.\nGretchen Wolfram, communications director for Lilly Endowment Inc., said IU has been a grantee for decades and has been the biggest grant recipient for research in contrast to other Indiana schools.\nWolfram said the current initiative, titled "Initiative to Recruit and Retain Intellectual Capital for Indiana Higher Education Institutions," was part of a $100 million state-wide initiative involving 37 colleges and universities. \n"All of the Indiana schools were invited to submit a proposal detailing ways to enhance the intellectual capital of the school," she said.\nLast week, it was announced that 15 schools received allocations of the $100 million grant. The amount of money each school received was based on student enrollment, Wolfram said.\n"Based on IU's proposal designed by President Herbert, I absolutely thought the school was well-deserving of this initiative," she said.\nMacIntyre said Herbert appreciates the Lilly Endowment and its commitment to strengthen IU and its various programs.\n"This grant will serve as a catalyst for expanded efforts to achieve the high institutional aspirations we have established in these areas of strategic priority," Herbert said in a statement. "We are very grateful to the Lilly Endowment for recognizing the promise offered by these initiatives and providing such a generous level of support for them." \n-- Contact campus editor Lori Geller at lfgeller@indiana.edu.