Engineering ways to give back
MIT alums fund minority efforts, fellowships
Some Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates are giving back, benefiting the spectra of academia from would-be engineers and scientists to professors.
Andrew Schulert, vice president of product development for Sonos Inc. in Cambridge, and a 1979 graduate of MIT, and his wife, Joy Lucas, have funded a $120,000 scholarship to MITES, the Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science program. For the past four years, the couple have also given $10,000 per year to SEED, the Saturday Engineering Enrichment and Discovery Academy of the institute.
MITES is a rigorous, six-week residential academic enrichment summer program for promising high school juniors. Since its inception 30 years ago, 80 percent of MITES graduates have pursued studies in science, technology, engineering, and math.
SEED Academy serves public high school students from Boston, Cambridge, and Lawrence, who are traditionally underserved in the pipeline to the technical workforce. Some SEED graduates go into the MITES program; 95 percent of them go on to college.
"My wife and I look for three things in our philanthropy," said Schulert, "disadvantaged students, an educational factor, and high tech. I benefited from going to MIT, and we are big fans of these two programs; in fact we go to their graduations and other events and cheer them on."
Another MIT graduate Edward H. Linde, who with his wife, Joyce, has donated approximately $5 million to support a professorship and five presidential fellowships.
Presidential fellowships fund the tuition and a living stipend of awardees for their first academic year at MIT, a year Linde recalled as "very difficult at this point in their studies." Two of the fellowships are specifically for students in civil and environmental engineering (Linde's field of study was in civil engineering), and the others are chosen at MIT's discretion.
The chief executive of Boston Properties Inc., Linde, with his wife, in 1987 established a Career Development Professorship in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, an endowed professorship chair in perpetuity that is currently held by Dr. Judith Layzer.
"My four years there were the most important part of my education," Linde said. "The way I was taught to think analytically is what has motivated me in philanthropy. MIT is incredibly important to the future of our country and society in the world."
Ipswitch Inc., a Lexington software company, generates a revenue of $30 million but with a unique philosophy of corporate social responsibility and giving, thanks to its founder and chief executive, Roger Greene.
Greene believes that giving is good for the bottom line and that name recognition, because of a company's community programs, resonates with the customer. Ipswitch has been giving five percent of its gross profit to charity since 1999, or more than $890,000 to date.
Greene also has created a tradition of giving each employee $500 per year toward the charity of their choice. After three years with the company, he gives them $1,000 each, adding another $1,000 for every multiple of three years that the employee remains with the company.
Each time an employee has a child, Ipswitch gives $500 in the name of the parent to any organization that fights child abuse. Employee volunteerism is recognized as well, with Ipswitch matching funds for any donation the employee makes, and donating to walkathons the employees enter.
Two years ago, Ipswitch started the Walk to Fight Child Poverty; it raised $50,000 the first year and $75,000 last year. Now everything Ipswitch supports has something to do with children after an employee survey a few years ago showed that most of them were interested primarily in children's charities. The only exceptions are the "anniversary" gifts, which employees still get to choose.
E-mail items about philanthropy and charitable events to philanthropy@globe.com. 