Watkins Visiting Professorships
The Watkins Visiting Professorship was created in 1974 by a grant from the Watkins Foundation. E. A. Watkins was vice president of the Union National Bank, Wichita, in 1936 when he acquired a small iron foundry and wholesale hardware firm that he built into Watkins, Inc., a major steel fabrication and industrial supply company. His son, E. Leon Watkins, a 1936 University alumnus, succeeded his father as president of the firm. After Leon Watkins death in 1971, his widow, Roberta - who also is a WSU alumna - announced that the Watkins' Foundation board of trustees had determined that "the sole project of the foundation shall be the support of the Watkins visiting Professorship at Wichita State University." The funds are now part of the endowment of the WSU Foundation. The departments of biological sciences, chemistry, geology, and physics share 4 to 6 visiting professorships each year, with each speaker providing a technical lecture and a popular lecture directed at the general public.
Watkins Summer Fellowships for Teachers
The Watkins endowment supports teachers from area schools in gaining a research experience during summer break. Typcially five or more teachers from high schools and middle schools in Wichita and surrounding communities receive fellowships and work with faculty in research labs and at the WSU field stations. Teachers then bring that research experience back to the classroom to enrich their students considering careers in the sciences. Applications are accepted each spring and teachers can choose from a list of faculty mentors and their research projects.