Colorado State University Announces Quarter-Million Dollar Gift

A $250,000 gift to the Chemistry Department at Colorado State University will be used to establish a fellowship fund named after one of the university’s most accomplished professors.

Mrs. Roberta Ivy Nissen Haugh of Oakland, Calif., established the fellowship fund to honor her family’s long-standing involvement in science and education and to recognize the contributions of chemistry professor Gary E. Maciel, the husband of her niece, Maxine Maciel. The gift will be used to establish and support the Gary E. Maciel Fund, a fund that will be used to provide fellowships for chemistry students at Colorado State. Additional gifts to the fund are anticipated.

"Mrs. Nissen Haugh’s generosity will provide opportunities for generations of future students," said Albert C. Yates, Colorado State president. "Her commitment to higher education is greatly appreciated. This gift also pays fitting tribute to Gary Maciel, an outstanding professor who has made very significant contributions to the field of chemistry and who also has been an influential force in building a strong chemistry department at Colorado State."

Mrs. Haugh was born in Livermore, Calif., in 1910, the oldest of four children. After a university education, she married John Haugh, a marine engineer, who died in 1953. They had one child, Susan, who is married to C. Jay Dunton and who will serve on the fellowship selection committee. For almost 100 years, Mrs. Haugh’s family has been involved in secondary and higher education in the West, as students and teachers, on school boards and in the funding of university scholarships and research.

Maciel became a Colorado State faculty member in 1971. His research as director of the Maciel Group has centered on nuclear magnetic resonance, a field that uses the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei to learn details of molecular structure and behavior in a wide range of samples. The Maciel Group has pioneered the development of many devices, techniques and experimental strategies in nuclear magnetic resonance.

"Having this fund established in my name is an unexpected and much appreciated honor," said Maciel. "I’m delighted that talented students will be able to undertake graduate studies in chemistry at Colorado State University thanks to the fellowships the new fund will provide."

Maciel received his bachelor’s degree in 1956 from the University of California at Berkeley and his doctorate in 1960 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He held National Science Foundation predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been a special National Institutes of Health Fellow at Harvard University and Carnegie-Mellon University.

For information on making contributions to the Gary E. Maciel Fund, call Vicki Lebsack in the College of Natural Sciences at (970) 491-0997.