Lake Superior State University establishes school's first endowed position

Brendan Wiesner, The Sault News
·2 min read
The Lake Superior State University Freshwater Center for Freshwater Research and Education is shown.
The Lake Superior State University Freshwater Center for Freshwater Research and Education is shown.

SAULT STE. MARIE — A $1 million donation has allowed Lake Superior State University to establish its very first endowed position.

Kevin Kapuscinski has been an assistant research director and associate professor at LSSU since 2014. Last year, after the creation of the LSSU Center for Freshwater Research and Education, Kapuscinski began working at the center researching various related projects.

The center is newly established and is still building its staff and funding, and officials said this endowed position will help the center with funding going forward.

More:LSSU's freshwater research center offers unique opportunities for students

"This is so important to us at the research center because we're a new initiative and this helps us with financial constraints as we're growing and allows us to invest in other positions," said Ashley Meorke, the director of the Richard and Theresa Barch Center for Freshwater Research and Education. "It reduces our overall budget cost, which allows us to be more flexible in growth."

Endowed positions are useful to universities because it establishes continuous funding for necessary, but expensive positions.

Kevin Kapuscinski
Kevin Kapuscinski

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"It allows Kevin to pursue new areas of research and develop more student opportunities here," said Meorke. "He'll be doing research around fisheries management and ensuring recreational fishing opportunities, or trying to enhance fish production in fisheries."

The $1 million that was donated to create the position will be invested into various programs to make money over a period of time. The investments from that original donation will be used to pay the salary of the endowed position going forward indefinitely.

The endowment also covers the cost of research projects to keep the position funded. By doing this, it allows for the position to be funded without taking that funding from the research center, and ensures it will stay funded in the future.

While the creation of this position is very beneficial for Kapuscinski, who now has a better paying and more secure job, this position will also continue to benefit the school for a long time. In addition to covering most of the funding required for the salary and research of the position, the endowment also means the position is protected and won't be cut for budgetary reasons.

"This allows us to keep the position because it will always be funded off that investment," said Meorke. "This makes it less likely the position will ever be cut if we come up against budget problems in the future."

This is not only the first endowed position at the research center but the first endowed position in the entire university.

The creation of the position is only possible because of a large donation to the school. Marty Vanderploeg, CEO of Workiva, an Iowa-based company, donated $1 million to the creation of the Martin Vanderploeg Endowed Assistant Director of Research at the Richard and Theresa Barch Center for Freshwater Research and Education.

— Contact Brendan Wiesner: BWiesner@Sooeveningnews.com

This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Kevin Kapuscinski is LSSU's first endowed research professor