E-Insight

April 2005

University News

Colorado State System Receives Good News in Form of Capital Funding

Though available state capital funding continues to be limited in Colorado, President Larry Edward Penley reported in a recent update to faculty and staff that the Colorado State University System will receive the largest amount of funding of any of the state’s higher-education governing boards. The allocation, $7.7 million, exceeds what the University had anticipated.

The total for higher education capital funding is $29,653,304 and includes 28 projects across the state. The CSU System allocation includes the following projects:

1. CSU-Pueblo Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building (HPER), Phase 1, plus air units and roof: $2,498,600.
2. CSU-Pueblo HPER building entrance and new bleachers: $2,800,000.
3. CSU regulated materials handling facility: $1,502,078.
4. CSU replace deteriorated plumbing items in various buildings, phase one: $481,390.
5. CSU-Pueblo replacement of roofs in the Life Sciences and Physics/Math buildings: $437,497.

Colorado State University Biomedical Scientist Named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator

Colorado State University Professor Karolin Luger has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Dr. Luger is the first person in University history to be honored with the prestigious accolade and is the only person in Colorado awarded the prominent distinction this year.

Dr. Luger, who joined Colorado State in 1999, is one of the world's foremost authorities in nucleosome structure, the basic unit for compacting DNA. She is one of 43 scientists chosen this year as investigators by the Chevy Chase, Md.-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an appointment that honors the nation's most promising biomedical scientists.

"This prestigious appointment by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is an honor for Professor Luger and Colorado State University. We are proud of Dr. Luger's accomplishments and pleased that she is receiving this well-deserved recognition," said Colorado State President Larry Edward Penley. "This honor underscores the national prominence of our faculty and the growing reputation enjoyed by the University, particularly in areas of science that have major impacts on the health and wellness of people throughout the world."

Dr. Luger, a member of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, focuses her research on the structure and function of eukaryotic chromatin. She led a scientific breakthrough that effectively solved the three-dimensional structure of the nucleosome. Nucleosome is the basic building block of chromatin, the material in which possibly billions of DNA base pairs are compacted in an individual cell nucleus. This work is now cited in nearly every modern textbook of biochemistry and molecular biology.

In Memory: William E. Morgan, President Emeritus of Colorado State University

William E. Morgan, one of Colorado's foremost leaders in higher education, died March 17, 2005, in Fort Collins. He was 95. William Edgeworth Morgan was born May 30, 1909, in Fort Worth, Texas, the next-to-youngest of eight children. After he graduated from Texas A&M in 1930, Dr. Morgan was commissioned at the age of 21 as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserves. In 1933, he earned his master's degree at the University of California-Berkeley, and in that same year, he married Lilla Graham Bryan of Bryan, Texas, on Dec. 31. She precedes him in death.

Dr. Morgan, who became the eighth president of Colorado A&M on Oct. 1, 1949, was instrumental in strengthening academic and graduate programs at the institution. One result of those efforts was the eventual name change to Colorado State University in 1957, which was authorized by the Colorado General Assembly.

He worked diligently to add and expand campus buildings and facilities. In 1949, facilities inventory was valued at about $6.6 million. In 1969, the value had increased to almost $102 million. During his tenure, construction was completed on athletic facilities, engineering center, chemistry annex, plant and animal sciences buildings, additions to the student center, faculty apartments, several residence halls and Eddy Hall. Morgan also played a key role in obtaining funds for a new library building, named in his honor when it opened in 1965.

"President Morgan clearly set the standard for all of us who have been fortunate enough to follow in his footsteps," said Colorado State University President Larry Edward Penley. "He was a man of great vision and even greater humility, who was as loved as he was admired by those who knew and worked with him.”

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions may be made to the Colorado State University Foundation, P. O. Box 1870, Fort Collins CO 80522-1870, designating either the Morgan Library Endowment or the William E. Morgan Endowed Chair in Liberal Arts.