Feb 19, 2020

An Investment in our Flagship Public University

The University of Rhode Island (URI) is the state’s public flagship institution, educating undergraduate, graduate, and professional students through its land, sea and urban grant traditions. Generous support provided to URI by the Champlin Foundation over nearly five decades has funded innumerable interdisciplinary projects across the University.

The Champlin Foundation’s generosity to the University began in 1970 with a scholarship grant for the College of Pharmacy. Their continued investments, since that time— in research, innovation and discovery—have been highly impactful. Since 1986 alone, Champlin has awarded annual grants to the University of Rhode Island totaling more than $13 million.

In the past two years, this has included support for the purchase of state-of-the-art educational tools and equipment to broaden experiential learning and increase collaboration across several disciplines such as engineering, communications, health sciences, environment and life sciences, and pharmacy. These tools contributed to the creation of a microfabrication hands-on learning facility at URI, and to establishing a LENA (Language Environment Analysis Lab) for students studying communicative disorders.

Taken as a whole, the support provided by the Champlin Foundation has enabled the University to modernize its academic and research programs and its training to prepare students for future careers. These investments have also greatly enhanced the University’s community outreach and educational efforts throughout Rhode Island and beyond. Most significantly, the support provided by the Champlin Foundation ensures that the University of Rhode Island remains competitive and continues to be successful at attracting and retaining high-caliber faculty and students.