From the Midland Daily News:
CMU receives $500,000 endowment
Honoring their parents and contributing to the education of students, the children of Central Michigan University alumni Rollie and Olga Denison established a $500,000 endowment to support Native American studies.
The Olga J. Denison and G. Roland Denison Visiting Professorship of Native American Studies will be part of the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Each year the endowment will bring in a scholar from another institution to teach courses and participate in related activities in order to strengthen core offerings in Native American studies at CMU.
The endowment was presented Dec. 6 to the CMU trustees.
“My parents were both active with Central their whole lives; it was a key part of their lives,” said Daniel Denison, one of the couple’s children.
The couple were lifelong residents of Mount Pleasant. Each received their bachelor’s degree from CMU, Rollie in 1941 and Olga in 1940.
Their children, Daniel of Ann Arbor, Spencer Denison of Denver, Colo., and Diane Dahnke of Beverly Hills, wanted to commemorate their parents’ numerous contributions to the community and to continue that service.
Rollie died in 2003 and Olga in 2006. Throughout their lives, they contributed to the CMU environment and to the Mount Pleasant area.
Among Rollie’s CMU activities were earning three varsity letters in both football and baseball, organizing the university’s chapter of the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity and forming the Century Club. He was awarded the Centennial Award in 1992.
Olga was one of the original organizers of the Central Michigan Mental Health Clinic and helped organize the Mae Beck Indian Affairs Committee of Mount Pleasant Women’s Club to assist Native youth and the ArtReach Center of Mid-Michigan.
Her involvement with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan carried throughout the 1960s to the 1980s.
“My mom always had a strong feeling for the issues and challenges of the tribe,” Denison said.
The endowment will provide for further understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions, innovations and political status of Native people in the United States and Canada. Courses will discuss Native American ways of living, understanding the world, organizing societies, and the impact of invasion and colonization on American Indians.
The endowment would be beneficial in attracting and retaining Native students from the region and the rest of the country, Denison said.
In order to create greater awareness for the need for endowed faculty, the university also announced that the Faculty Endowment Matching Program will match the income from the family’s gift dollar for dollar.
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