Elon Trustee Vicky Hunt and Sam Hunt continue their support of the Elon LEADS Campaign with a gift to the IQ, helping to provide premier facilities for physics, engineering and other STEM fields at Elon.
Elon Trustee Vicky Hunt and Sam Hunt continue their support of the Elon LEADS Campaign with a gift to the Innovation Quad, helping to provide premier facilities for physics, engineering and other STEM fields at Elon.
The Hunts, of Burlington, North Carolina, are supporting the IQ, which will lay the foundation for dynamic, multidisciplinary STEM education at Elon.
“The Innovation Quad is about Elon expanding its footprint in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education, an important expansion of a curriculum that is in demand with students now and into the future,” the Hunts said. “This state-of-the-art facility will be a hub for student engagement, collaboration and mentoring.”
The Hunts’ gift will also create the Sam and Vicky Hunt Business Fellows Scholarship in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. Increasing scholarship funding is the top priority of Elon LEADS.
“We appreciate being able to continue our support of Elon and in particular the Elon LEADS Campaign,” the couple said. “This is a great university with outstanding leadership and one that is constantly moving forward.”
“The Elon community is indebted to Vicky and Sam Hunt for their unstoppable and ongoing generous support of the Innovation Quad, which represents an exciting new chapter in Elon’s future,” said President Connie Ledoux Book. “By investing in STEM at Elon, the Hunts are preparing students to be the innovators the world needs.”
The first two buildings of the Innovation Quad, Founders Hall and IQ2, are scheduled to open in August and represent the heart of the IQ and the initial phase of a long-term investment by Elon into science, creativity and discovery that will be accessible to all students, regardless of their major.
In recognition of the Hunts’ gift, the atrium in Founders Hall will be named The Hunt Atrium, a spacious, inviting entry point to the IQ. Hunt Atrium will feature open collaboration spaces and assembly areas, tiered bench seating and meeting space for group events, and will host guest speakers and receptions. Hunt Atrium will be a hub for innovation and the backbone of Elon’s engineering curriculum.
At Elon, the Hunts have made gifts to need- and talent-based scholarships, including the Odyssey Program, which serves promising students with significant financial need. The Hunts have also contributed to the Phoenix Club and Elon Academy, the university’s successful college access program, and helped advance Elon’s iconic campus with gifts to Hunt Softball Park, Schar Center and The Inn at Elon. The Hunts are members of the Elon LEADS Campaign Steering Committee.
The Hunts have also provided for Elon in their estate, an important component of Elon LEADS. Last fall, the couple made a $3 million estate gift as part of A Will to Lead, a special initiative of the campaign that has inspired donors to create a lasting legacy at Elon by placing the university in their estates.
Sam Hunt is the retired Chairman and CEO of Atlas Lighting Products and Hunt Electric Supply Company of Burlington. He served four terms in the N.C. House of Representatives before being named Transportation Secretary in 1993. He went on to serve as President and Chairman of the N.C. Railroad from 1996-2002. In addition to her role in their businesses, Vicky Hunt has served as an Elon trustee since 1997. She is actively involved with charitable work in her community.
The Innovation Quad: A Transformative Investment in Elon’s Future
The IQ is located between the Dalton L. McMichael Sr. Science Center, Richard W. Sankey Hall and the Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center, solidifying connections between STEM and the sciences, entrepreneurship, sales, design thinking and analytics.
Founders Hall was made possible following a naming gift from Elon alumnus Furman Moseley ’56 and his wife, Susan Moseley, who are among the university’s most generous donors. The 20,000-square-foot building is designed to enable engineering students and faculty to transform bold ideas into prototypes. It will include multiple laboratories, including those for design, advanced prototyping, astrophysics, prefabrication, mechatronics and virtual reality.
The three-story, 40,000-square-foot IQ2 will be the home for cross-disciplinary studies, equipment and research in biomedicine, computer science, physics and robotics. The facility also features cutting-edge flexible classrooms for biophysics and physics, and laboratory space for core engineering courses, bioinstrumentation, environmental engineering research, biomedical and environmental labs.
Future phases will include academic and residence halls, as well as a series of corporate-sponsored incubators and design hubs that will promote cross-disciplinary studies and collaboration.
In addition to being a key priority of the Elon LEADS Campaign, the IQ is central to the objectives of Boldly Elon, the university’s 10-year strategic plan.
About the Elon LEADS Campaign
With a $250 million goal, Elon LEADS is the largest fundraising campaign in the university’s history and will support four main priorities: scholarships for graduates the world needs, access to engaged learning opportunities such as study abroad, research and internships, support for faculty and staff mentors who matter and Elon’s iconic campus.
Every gift to the university—including annual, endowment, capital, estate and other planned gifts—for any designation counts as a gift to the campaign, which will support students and strengthen Elon for generations to come. As of March 24, donors had contributed $242 million toward the goal. To learn more about how you can make an impact, visit www.elonleads.com.