Trine receives Lilly Endowment planning grant

INDIANAPOLIS (12/16/2019) — Trine University has received a $100,000 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to assist the university with strategic planning.

The grant is part of Charting the Future for Indiana's Colleges and Universities, a new initiative by the Lilly Endowment to help Indiana's 38 higher education institutions further develop strategies to strengthen their effectiveness and sustainability.

"Lilly Endowment has long been a generous supporter of education throughout the state of Indiana, and we greatly appreciate this new initiative," said Earl D. Brooks II, Ph.D., Trine University president. "Though Trine University continues to experience historic success and growth, we cannot rest on our laurels with the challenges facing higher education today. We are excited and grateful for the assistance that the Charting the Future initiative provides in meeting those challenges."

Lilly Endowment is making $108.2 million in grants available to Indiana colleges and universities throughout three phases of the Charting the Future initiative. The planning grant Trine received is part of the first phase. In the second and third phases, Lilly Endowment will provide grants to support strategies and programs likely to prepare students for rewarding employment, especially in Indiana; enhance the viability of higher educational institutions; and enable institutions to further their educational missions more effectively in new or innovative ways.

"We are encouraging Indiana's higher education leaders to be bold and imaginative in developing creative and collaborative strategies to strengthen their institutions and further their educational missions more effectively," said Ted Maple, Ph.D., the Endowment's vice president for education. "We are impressed with the dedication of Indiana's higher education leaders to face head-on their challenges and embrace their opportunities to build brighter futures for their students and colleges and universities."

Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, the Endowment is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders' wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.