Miller College of Business plans to use a $1 million gift to attract more freshmen.
Rod Davis, interim dean of MCOB, said the Michael L. and Jacqueline J. Johnston Family Scholarship Fund donated the money to the college last fall.
The money will be invested with a five percent return, Davis said, and the $50,000 MCOB receives from it next year will go toward scholarships for incoming freshmen.
"We had been giving scholarships to students who had already been here," he said. "Over the last year or two, we made an effort to generate more freshmen scholarships."
The college plans to direct the scholarships toward freshmen to help with recruitment, Davis said.
"Our college has always been primarily more of an upper-division college," he said. "You're not officially admitted until you're a junior, so the scholarship money was for juniors and seniors. To be competitive you need to really look to freshmen and sophomores more, especially financially, as they move through their four-year college career."
MCOB will divide the $50,000 into several scholarships, Davis said, but he did not know how it will be divided.
The college will add the donation to about $250,000 in scholarships, Davis said. MCOB gives scholarships to 125 to 150 students, he said.
"Certainly the gift from the Johnstons will be a very, very significant gift," he said.
Amy Thomas, associate vice president for endowment and planned gift stewardship, said the donation was not a new scholarship. The foundation began the scholarship in 1997 and the $1 million was an addition to it, Thomas said.
The most recent donation came from the estate of the Johnstons' son, who died in 2007, Thomas said.
Davis said MCOB is appreciative of the Johnstons' contributions.
"They have been wonderful benefactors and friends to the college for a number of years," he said.
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