Gift Creates Doctoral Fellowships in Civil Engineering

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — An alumnus of the College of Engineering who benefited from scholarship support as a student is giving back to his alma mater by making a $100,000 gift that will help students today.

Lynn and Sue Jenkins’ gift to the University of Arkansas College of Engineering will establish doctoral fellowships in civil engineering.

College of Engineering Dean Ashok Saxena said: “We are so pleased that Lynn and Sue Jenkins have chosen to support the College of Engineering in this manner. This fellowship fund will be an attractive recruiting tool for us as we continue on our path to become a top-tier engineering college. It also provides a valuable opportunity to encourage outstanding Arkansas students to remain in the state for their post-graduate studies.”

The Citizens Fidelity Insurance Company Doctoral Fellowship in Civil Engineering, so named to commemorate Lynn Jenkins’ many years with the company, will support qualified doctoral graduate students in the College of Engineering. Preference will be given to students who have graduated from an Arkansas high school.

This gift will by matched by $100,000 from funds available through the Matching Gift Program to create a $200,000 endowment for the fellowship. The Matching Gift Program, made possible by the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation’s $300 million gift to the University of Arkansas, sets aside funds for endowments that show promise for enhancing economic competitiveness in Arkansas.

Lynn Jenkins said: “The main reason we made this gift was to support the College of Engineering. We really stretched ourselves to do it at this time because of the incentive of the Matching Gift Program.”

Lynn and Sue Jenkins met as students at the University of Arkansas and married their junior year. Sue worked as a secretary in the electrical engineering department in the College of Engineering to help support Lynn as he completed his civil engineering degree. After graduation in 1962, Lynn worked for the Arkansas Foundry, the company that sponsored a scholarship that helped support Lynn’s education. After working there for three years, he fulfilled his military commitment and spent four years in the Navy Civil Corps of Engineers. The couple returned to Fayetteville where they worked in Sue’s family’s business, Roller Funeral Homes, before acquiring the insurance business. Today, the couple lives on 10 acres in southeast Little Rock. They have two children, one of whom attended the University of Arkansas.