Jack D. Gaskill Endows Scholarship for Undergraduate Optics Students

Dec. 10, 1999



Professor Emeritus Jack D. Gaskill, of the University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center, recently commemorated his retirement from teaching by contributing a generous leadership gift to endow an undergraduate student scholarship in Optical Sciences.

The scholarship, with an estimated annual value of $8,000, will be awarded to a junior- or senior-level undergraduate student at the Optical Sciences Center on the basis of merit, achievement, and future potential within the optics industry. The award will be made annually beginning in 2002.

The scholarship is named for Gaskill, an Optical Sciences faculty member for 31 years and associate director for academic affairs at the Optical Sciences Center for more than 20 years. Gaskill was instrumental in creating and obtaining approval for the undergraduate program in optical engineering. He has taught courses in fourier optics, holography, optical systems analysis, image science and engineering, engineering systems analysis, and a freshman colloquium titled "The Impact of Junk Science on Our Daily Lives."

Throughout his career at the UA, Gaskill had the opportunity to assist and guide nearly all of the students at the Optical Sciences Center. Gaskill was more than an academic advisor; he became a friend and mentor to the Center's students, and it is especially appropriate that the first endowed scholarship at the Optical Sciences Center be named in his honor and awarded to an undergraduate optics student.

Gaskill's scholarship will assist an undergraduate in completing a baccalaureate degree in optics at the University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center. A scholarship committee, including Gaskill, will make the award based on the applicant's academic records, an essay and an interview.

On Gaskill's behalf, the Optical Sciences Center has established a funding goal of $150,000 to complete an endowment that will provide approximately $8,000 per year for the award recipient.

Names of contributors will be displayed on the Scholarship Page of the Optical Sciences Center web site, and for donations of $12,000 or more, the donor will become eligible for the University of Arizona President's Club membership. The suggested contribution is $1,000, but gifts of all sizes will be welcomed. Donors may make a contribution in someone else's name, contribute stocks or securities, and employers may match their employees' contributions. All gifts are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.


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