UW-Oshkosh alumni to generate crucial funds for students through Titan Alumni Foundation

UW-Oshkosh graduates are collaborating in a new foundation to aid more than 16,000 students in scholarship funds.

The Titan Alumni Foundation is a nonprofit organization that allows alumni to pool their donations and support for the university in one unified entity. The foundation is run by a volunteer board that is "a separate and distinct legal entity” from the university.

“I am personally moved and inspired by the selflessness and service the Titan Alumni Foundation leaders have exhibited to this university,” UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt said.

UW-Oshkosh provides 79 percent of their students with some form of financial aid. The foundation will play an important role in fundraising for the essential aid the university provides, according to resident of the Foundation’s Board of Directors Scott Barr.

He also noted the important role the foundation will play in helping students be successful in the workplace.

“At UWO today, I see tomorrow’s nurses, teachers, police officers and business leaders … the people who will make our world run,” Barr said at the time of the announcement.

The announcement follows the investigation into the UW-Oshkosh Foundation, an integral part of their fundraising unity, when Chancellor Richard Wells and Vice Chancellor Tom Sonnleitner were charged with five counts of misconduct at the result of abusing their authority as parties to a crime.

And yet, the alumni is maintaining an active role in the university as many see it as an opportunity to give back to their campus and everything it has provided for them since.

“In my career, I combined my solid education and experience with hard work. I’m giving back to the school that gave me my start, and I’m putting my money to work today to impact tomorrow,” said alumnus Jerry Gonyo, from the class of 1964.