Tom is a member of the Kenan Charitable Trust, one of the three trustees. And he is also on the fund of the Kenan fund for Engineering, Technology and science, which Is the organization that funds the Kenan institute directly. He has had a long term relationship with NC State and also became the director of the Randleigh Foundation, which handled Randleigh farm, which was given to CALS originally. It was sold by NC State and then that money went to support the College of Vet Medicine, as well as the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
And the then chancellor and I sat down and I said I think you ought to redo the library and the Vet School. And maybe, and do it in Mr. Kenan’s memory. So, they completely redid the library. If you’ve seen it, it’s really state of the art.
Then with the bulk of the funds I said why don’t we create a Rand Lee museum to show kids what it was like way back then in the twenties, thirties, and forties, and then couple that with twenty-first century milking parlor and everything, so they can see.
Tom has facilitated some wonderful strengthening in our faculty retention and also strengthening in our programs here at NC State, especially in engineering, science, technology, and in education. The Kenan Fellows Program is one that I’m particularly thrilled about.
The Kenan Fellowes Program is the program within the Kenan Institute. And we began that about twelve years ago seeing the demand for new programs to help some of our better teachers in the sciences and the mathematics to feel like they’re part of the scientific community and to provide better linkages so these individuals and these teachers with industry and the university, so they become more familiar with the cutting edge technology that’s being generated by both industry and the university and they can translate that technology into curriculum tools that would get out k-12 students interested in science, interested in math, interested in engineering as a career.
They try to go out into the public schools and find the brightest and the finest young science teachers, and this program takes them and mentors them with professors, from Duke, Carolina, State and they mentor them and they learn so much.
We’ve had over two-hundred and fifty Kenan Fellowes. They have won numerous awards. They have done extremely well. And one of the things that we’re most proud of is that ninety-three percent of those individuals are still in teaching.
Well, Tom Kenan in addition to doing all of these great things I must say is one of the nicest persons you’ll ever meet. He’s, I never heard him say a bad thing about anyone. He’s completely supportive of all kinds of efforts of our bright range, even when there are personal issues. I have a son that was diagnosed with Leukemia a year ago. And he’s just getting past the stage, he and his whole family were extremely supportive and I can’t thank him enough for it. What they do for the state and for individuals like me when it comes to time of needs they’re there.