University President John T. Casteen, III and his wife, Betsy Foote Casteen, have given a $500,000 gift to endow scholarships for the children of University employees, Capital Campaign Chairman Gordon Rainey announced Saturday at the Campaign's gala.
The gift, implementation of which was given to the Board of Visitors, will be added to other contributions to create an endowment to be used in the future, Casteen said.
The gift will be used to attract faculty members to the University who might be dealing with college costs for their children or buying a home, Casteen said.
"I'm trying to hire faculty that have established reputations but are in their middle years ... [when] the issue of not having this kind of support regularly turns up," he said. "This particular benefit is a very common way that good universities compete with one another for faculty."
The gift, however, is not meant solely for faculty members' children but could also be used for benefiting the children of other University employees, Casteen said.
"We talked about who should benefit from the type of program we wanted to fund," Casteen said. "We don't see a clear distinction between what should be done for faculty families and any employee's family."
Casteen explained that in many public institutions in other states, such funds are delegated by the state.
"I think that Virginia ... the state should have been doing this all along," Casteen said. "We have an interest in protecting the University's people."
Currently, the Board of Visitors does not have the authority to delegate state money to such a scholarship fund, Casteen said.
If such funds were ever available from the state, the Casteen gift would go to those areas the Board deemed of "highest need," Casteen said.
According to a University press release, Casteen pushed for similar legislation in the 1980s, when he served as Virginia's secretary of education.
Rainey said he hopes this contribution spurs others to do the same.
"It's very important in that it sends such a wonderful message ... and it is a great reflection of John and Betsey Casteen's generosity and devotion to the faculty and to the staff," Rainey said. "We're hoping that it will inspire others to make similar commitment"
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