$1 million gift creates endowed professorship

BOWLING GREEN, O.—A Bowling Green couple has made a $1 million gift to Bowling Green State University to benefit accounting and business students. The million-dollar donation from Robert and Patricia Maurer will fund the Robert W. and Patricia A. Maurer Family Endowed Professor of Accounting within the College of Business Administration.

The Maurers, who both attended the University as accounting majors, want their gift to reflect their belief in the importance of a strong accounting background and to demonstrate their support of the University.

“We know firsthand how important accounting is to help run a business,” said Patricia Maurer, who operates and manages Greenbriar Inc., the family-owned real estate property management and development company. “A foundation in accounting provides the nuts and bolts of a business,” she added, which is why the Maurers encouraged their own children to study accounting. In fact, she said, four of their five children have degrees in accounting.

They also agreed that by establishing a fund to support a professor position, their gift would touch more lives.

BGSU's College of Business Administration Dean Rodney Rogers said, “As we know, great faculty are the key for a great academic program, and the accounting program at BGSU has a long tradition of excellence. This generous gift will allow us to propel the program to a new level of distinction by retaining and recruiting the very best faculty in the country.

“We are very grateful to Bob and Pat Maurer for their significant investment in the program. They are providing us with the ability to achieve our goal of being one of the best business colleges in the Midwest.”

“This professorship will allow us to significantly enhance a current position so that we can recruit or retain a top accounting professor at BGSU,” Rogers continued.

The college will establish a search for the person to hold this chair over the next year. The Department of Accounting and Management Information Systems currently has about 20 faculty members. It is the only Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited accounting program in northwest Ohio and one of only 175 in the world.

The endowed professorship is the most recent gift in a long list of donations from the Maurers to BGSU. Most recently, they made a $200,000 gift to establish the Maurer Library Endowment Fund to support priority library projects at the University. In addition to being strong supporters of the University Libraries, they have donated to the Falcon Club, Presidents Club, the President's Leadership Academy and WBGU-PBS.

“We hold BGSU in high esteem,” said Bob Maurer, who also practices law in the firm Maurer, Newlove & Bakies LLC. “BGSU is a huge benefit to the whole community.

“We both have fond memories of our time at BGSU and because a lot of our business is with college students, we thought now was a good time to give back,” he explained.

“Bowling Green State University and the Bowling Green community are fortunate to have Bob and Pat Maurer as friends,” said BGSU President Sidney A. Ribeau. “They are very generous in their support of important initiatives, both on and off campus, and I am very grateful.”

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(Posted February 16, 2008 )