Holdrege native Marjorie Mattson Sorensen wants to help students have a better understanding of different cultures and has established the Robert C. Sorensen and Marjorie Mattson Sorensen Scandinavian Scholarship for students at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

The $300,000 gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation creates a permanently endowed fund that will provide up to three scholarship awards a year to cover half the costs for students to study abroad for a semester in a Scandinavian country, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway or Sweden.

National Semiconductor Corp. has honored University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumnus Brian L. Halla with a named student fellowship fund for the College of Engineering. Halla serves as executive chairman of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company and was chief executive officer for 14 years before retiring from that position in 2009.

A $1 million donation by Minneapolis resident and Omaha native John Morgan to the University of Nebraska Foundation has funded a new re-entry initiative at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) to address community needs, including inmates in the Nebraska prison system.

The University of Nebraska at Kearney Department of Music and Performing Arts has received private gifts totaling $2 million from an anonymous donor, including $500,000 to permanently endow a chair in the music department.

Blanche Berns often spoke to her children about the importance of an education. The lessons struck a chord, because her son Henry D. Berns and his wife Marilyn recently established a scholarship in Blanche’s memory to help future teachers attend the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Blanche taught at rural country schools in Webster County, Neb., after graduating from what was then Kearney State Teacher’s College. After seven years, she stopped teaching when she married Henry P. F. Berns. They were rural farmers in Webster County where they raised five children, but she never stopped taking an interest in education.

University of Nebraska alumnus and cattleman Paul F. Engler of Amarillo, Texas, announced today a $20 million gift to support programs in agribusiness at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

“I think about myself and my age, and I still have fire in my belly,” Engler said. “We need to identify these boys and girls who have that fire in the belly when they are young and then when they come to the university, expose them to a curriculum that teaches risk—how to evaluate it and how to manage it—because if you do not take risk as an entrepreneur, you are not going to make it.”

Ruth and Bill Scott are deeply rooted and invested in the Omaha community where they have lived for nearly 55 years. The Scotts have contributed greatly to the city’s progress, health and vitality in a quiet but exceptional way.

Their lead gift supporting the redevelopment of Roskens Hall into the new home of the College of Education is significant to the University of Nebraska at Omaha where the majority of teachers in the metropolitan area are educated. The Scotts’ investment will benefit generations of future educators and those whose professions are fundamental to the success of the community’s citizens.

A $10,000 gift from Justin Duffy’s friends and former co-workers at the Eaton Corporation is pushing a scholarship in his memory closer to its goal.

Duffy was killed on June 2, 2009, when a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee while his Army unit provided security escort for military leadership in Baghdad. A fund in his memory was established last year at the University of Nebraska Foundation to help students attend the University of Nebraska at Kearney where Duffy graduated in 2000.

Duffy’s former Kearney, Neb., employer, Eaton, donated more than $10,000 in memory of its former employee. Duffy worked at the plant as a production supervisor for about five years.

All who want to know the latest about how giving is advancing the University of Nebraska in remarkable ways now have the option to learn more with Facebook and YouTube.

Film expert and professor Wheeler Winston Dixon, the James E. Ryan Professor of Film Studies, discusses why people are drawn to films like the new blockbuster film "2012." His endowed professorship was a gift from the estate of Mr. James E. Ryan, who lived in Lincoln.