CU Boulder announced on Sept. 24 that a new $10 million gift from Alice Mortenson, the Mortenson Family Foundation and Mortenson Construction will help the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience continue and expand its work on water, sanitation, energy and resilient infrastructure in communities around the world. The center is named for the family; the late Mort Mortenson was a CU civil engineering graduate.
The gift establishes two $1.5 million endowed professorships, the Alice Mortenson Endowed Professorship in Global Resilience and the Mort Mortenson Endowed Professorship in Global Engineering. The remaining $7 million goes to the center’s endowment, which the university says gives it flexibility to respond to emerging needs, pursue practical research and expand hands-on learning opportunities for students.
The numbers behind the name
According to CU Boulder Today, more than 500 alumni of the Mortenson Center have worked in global engineering in 30 countries, and 10 million people have received access to clean water thanks to their work. That is the return on a Boulder classroom: engineers who leave campus and build things that keep working after they go home.
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