Giving Week 2023

RSU’s AeroCats STEM Training Team is a volunteer student group within the Department of Technology and Justices Studies.

Each academic year, the AeroCats volunteer to complete STEM centric community outreach. These service minded learners act as student ambassadors as they provide summer camps and community outreach to underserved K-12 populations. This group serves, on average, 3,500 K-12 learners per academic year.

This group wishes to add to their toolbox of community outreach by now providing robotics. They have researched university competitions as well as equipment required. The intent is to purchase equipment required to compete at the university level, compete nationally and regionally, and then use this equipment to continue their efforts in STEM community outreach.

Giving Week Goal: $4,500

AeroGames is an exciting STEM team competition event at RSU that brings together more than 300 high school and middle school students from across northeastern Oklahoma.

Teams will program autonomous flights on a DJI Robomaster TT drone based on a course layout produced by RSU technology learners. The competitors also pilot a DJI Phantom 3 drone through a free flight obstacle course, again each designed and built by RSU university learners.

This experience introduces middle and high school learners to coding and basic drone piloting skills under the mentorship of RSU learners in our technology degree programs. This interaction between local K-12 and University learners is the cornerstone of this competition. It provides mentorship, leadership, service, and STEM awareness throughout the educational system. Giving Week funding will support competition expenses.

Giving Week Goal: $4,500

The RSU Center for Western Foundations and the American Republic is an inter-disciplinary academic co-curricular initiative. The aim and purpose of the Center is to complement and supplement curricular teaching and learning about the essential ideas, values, and traditions that form Western culture and the American Constitutional order.

The Center posits the proposition that a full understanding of and a deep appreciation for the American Republic requires a broad engagement with Western culture through its great works of philosophy, literature, politics, art, and religion. 

The Center also seeks to promote civil discourse about contemporary debates over issues of self-governance, personal responsibility, civic education, and the ethics of citizenship.

Giving Week Goal: $5,000

Integrating technology in the teaching and learning process is the focus of a Giving Week proposal from the Department of Business, which will be used to upgrade technology in classroom 227 of Herrington Hall.

Funding will be used to purchase a Microsoft Surface Studio 2+, a 50-inch monitor, docking equipment and other hardware, which will augment or replace current equipment which is outdated.

Giving Week Goal: $4,991

The RSU Foundation’s General Scholarship Fund provides scholarship support to students with extraordinary financial need, particularly those who have exhausted all other financial aid options. In many cases, support from this fund is the difference between a student continuing work on a degree or having to drop out or postpone studies.

Giving Week Goal: Unlimited Support Needed

This project would establish a fund supporting an annual networking event designed to bring Honors Program alumni back to campus and connect them with current Honors students.

The event would allow time for students and alumni to visit about shared interests and majors. The event would directly benefit the current students involved, helping them to see the range of career and life possibilities as well as the connections to their academic work at RSU.

Giving Week Goal: $3,000

RSU Libraries requests funding support for an ambitious project, the Native American Music Digitization and Preservation Initiative.

Upon the successful launch of this initiative, RSU Libraries seeks to make a significant impact on student’s academic and individual experiences by making available access to original, authentic Native American music recordings from a diverse range of tribal nations.

The goal of this project is to collaborate with tribal members who wish to contribute to this archive and undertake the mass digitization efforts of their personal Native American music collections to ensure their preservation for future generations and to promote cultural understanding through academic exploration. Funding will be used to purchase audio recording and digitization equipment.

Giving Week Goal: $4,950

Veterans, especially those that have experienced deployment or combat, have unique needs and the RSU Veteran’s Center was created to provide a dedicated space on campus that offers resources, community and academic assistance that is vital to academic success.

The current Veteran’s Center lacks modern technology and is underutilized. This Giving Week initiative would provide funding to purchase computers and large copy scanners and printers; assist in renovations to provide a more welcoming atmosphere; and support the Student Veterans Association with targeted programs and initiatives.

Giving Week Goal: $4,500