A centerpiece of the people-centered, half-billion-dollar Bold & Blue fundraising campaign was an ambitious goal for funding endowed leadership positions.
At the campaign’s start in 2017, SDSU had commitments for 13 endowed positions—established with gifts of $1 million or more. University and campaign leadership established the target of growing that number to 50. 
In August 2023, gift agreements were finalized for the 50th and 51st positions.
Appropriately, two couples with 108 ½ years of combined service to SDSU made financial commitments to push the university’s Bold & Blue comprehensive campaign past that important milestone.
Dean Emerita Roberta Olson ’64 funded the Roberta K. Olson Endowed Dean of the College of Nursing, a position she held from 1994 to 2013. Olson’s late husband, David Ph.D. ’06, worked at SDSU in rural community development for 16 years before his passing in 2016.
Dan Kemp, an emeritus professor in mathematics, and his wife, Michele, are providing a gift for the Kemp Endowed Professorship of Honors Mathematics. Dan taught at SDSU for 43 ½ years; Michele served as the administrative assistant for the College of Arts and Sciences for 29 years. 
An endowed position is the highest academic award that a university can bestow on a faculty member or academic leader, with the fund lasting as long as the university exists. It serves as an honor to the named holder of the appointment and an enduring tribute to the donor who establishes it.
The endowments associated with these positions presently range from $1 million to $5 million. The endowments generate an annual flow of revenue that can be used to support the endowment holders’ area of responsibility—everything from funding graduate students, research support, equipment and travel.
They are viewed as a powerful tool for the university to retain and recruit top talent.
The idea for an endowed dean first occurred to Olson during her time as associate dean at the University of Kansas. She became aware of the practice through interaction with peers around the country. Olson had earned her undergraduate degree from SDSU in 1964. “Wouldn’t it be nice…,” she recalled thinking, “if we had one of those at SDSU.”
By 1993, she was named SDSU’s dean of nursing. The thought of an endowed dean never left, but it remained a distant dream. It started with a $1,000 gift by Olson in 2014 to start the process. She championed the cause by making personal gifts of between $35,000 to $40,000 over the next five years. Eventually, she committed $1.94 million more to reach the goal.
When Olson left the dean’s position in 2013, the college had a budget of about $6 million. Five years later, she returned for one year as interim dean. The budget had doubled to $12 million. The endowment’s annual distribution will provide the additional resources that a dean needs to strategically deploy; the position will enable SDSU to continue attracting and retaining strong leaders.
“It makes a statement on the quality of the program,” she said, simply. It is the third academic college at SDSU with an endowed dean’s position.
There’s a unique twist to the Olson Endowed Dean of Nursing. Current Dean Mary Anne Krogh ’85/Ph.D. ’11 will be the first holder. Krogh earned her doctorate at SDSU in 2011—the same year her daughter, Ellen, earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing. Olson was their dean. Now, Krogh carries on the tradition of her former dean, armed with an endowed deanship funded by Olson.
The Kemps’ pathway to funding an endowed position came on far more recently.
The couple has been a fixture at SDSU and Brookings since 1976, when Dan joined the faculty as an assistant professor and later a full professor. His recognition included Teacher of the Year within the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering twice, the Edward Patrick Hogan Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009 and the Honors College Teacher of the Year in 2016. Michele studied English and psychology at the University of Texas; the two met when Dan was a lieutenant in the Army.
Initially, they worked out details on an endowment to provide a $2,000 scholarship in perpetuity. That led to discussions about what else they might do. Dan Kemp taught honors calculus from 1995 to 2019, and for more than four decades overall at SDSU. “I didn’t run out of enthusiasm,” Dan said. “I just ran out of energy.”
Their affinity for SDSU and Dan’s passion for the Van D. and Barbara B. Fishback Honors College and mathematics made the named professorship a natural fit. It keeps the Kemp name linked to honors and mathematics forever and prioritizes classroom instruction for the honors calculus series. The Kemp professorship is the first endowed honors faculty position, with an Honors College goal of creating an Honors Imagination Center representing faculty from each academic college at SDSU.
The Kemps will fund it annually, with the endowment eventually created as part of their estate plan. Neither had ever considered the idea or thought they’d be in a position to do it.
“You think you have to be Bill Gates,” Michele joked. Added Dan: “We learned that there were options to doing it.”
For former students of Kemp, the professorship is a reflection of a gentle and quiet commitment to student instruction and a fitting legacy for him, who is affectionately called, “The Man, The Math, The Legend.”
