By Carmen Miller
When the IU Southeast School of Business decided to update the computers in the Financial Markets Lab earlier this year, Milt Stewart, an IU alumnus and member of the IU Foundation Board of Directors, saw an opportunity to provide hardworking students with computers of their own.
“When I saw the computers sitting there, I wondered what’s going to happen to those?” said Milt when asked what inspired him to suggest donating the computers to students. “This simple act will change lives.”
In accordance with the Office of Financial Aid and Administrative Affairs, Dean Eplion of the School of Business established a process by which students were able to submit an application in order to be considered as a recipient of one of the used computers. The chosen students were gifted the computers free of charge.
“All students, regardless of area of study, were invited to complete the application. In the application, students were asked to provide basic information such as their name and student ID number. Additionally, they were asked to describe how receiving a free, desktop computer would support their academic success,” said Jamie Mosby, scholarship and outreach coordinator in Student Affairs.
The new computers in the Financial Markets Lab were acquired with funding from an endowment established by the late Judge Carlton E. Sanders ‘72 and Sue Sanders ‘81, a current member of the IU Southeast Board of Advisors.
Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Amanda Stonecipher said, “The Sanders have been very generous supporters of IU Southeast for many years, and Sue Sanders was very supportive of the computers being given to students who otherwise could not afford a computer.”
Their generous gift not only enabled the Financial Markets Lab to remain a state-of-the-art facility, but it also allowed 20 students access to technology they could otherwise not afford by relieving the University of the financial stress of buying new computers.
“This opportunity would not have been possible without the generosity and support of the late Judge Carlton Sanders, and his wife Sue, graduates of the Indiana University Southeast School of Business, so I would like to extend my gratitude on behalf of the students who received a desktop computer,” said Mosby.