Giving Day 2018, held on March 8, is the University of Maryland’s largest one-day fundraising event. All members of the University of Maryland community—students, faculty, staff, parents, friends and alumni—are invited to give. In addition to raising money, Giving Day engages the entire community in supporting the mission of the University of Maryland.
Gifts to the Graduate School support our priorities of increasing fellowship funding for doctoral students, recruiting, retaining, and graduating a diverse student population, and creating and sustaining services to ensure graduate student success and career readiness, such as those provided by the Graduate School Writing Center and the Office of Career and Professional Development.
This year, gifts to the Graduate School increased by 26% compared to 2017. Thanks to a generous matching gift from Dr. Ashok and Ranjana Kulkarni, the Graduate School received a total of $11,135 from 53 individual gifts. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. Interim Dean Steve Fetter stated that “These funds will make possible meaningful improvements to our programs in support of graduate students. Many thanks to the Kulkarnis and to everyone who contributed.”
The Kulkarni family has a long history of educational philanthropy. The Kulkarni Foundation has helped build two schools for underserved youth in rural India and supported vocational training for physically challenged children, as well as a scholarship program at Ashok Kulkarni’s undergraduate alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
Since 2013, the Kulkarnis have funded the Graduate School’s Kulkarni Foundation Summer Research Fellowship for UMD doctoral students who are graduates of IIT, and have generously donated to past university campaigns with the aim of improving graduate education. They have also established the Kulkarni Foundation Endowed Award for McNair Scholars, which provides tuition support for Ph.D. students who have achieved candidacy and are alumni of the McNair Scholars program.
“Just as we are grateful to our mother for giving us life, we must be grateful to our alma mater for giving us the tools for our livelihood,” adds Dr. Ashok V. Kulkarni.