George and Eleanor Kambouris Establish Excellence Funds |
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George and Eleanor Kambouris believe in education. “Education teaches you to think and reason and do a better job in whatever you do,” George says. Eleanor adds, “Education gives people more ways of thinking. They are aware of more opportunities and a whole better way of life.”
Now retired, both Kambourises were educators. George (Ph.D., Chemistry, ‘74) was an adjunct professor at Southeast Missouri State University, and Eleanor (M.A., English, ‘76) first taught high school English but, because of class sizes, moved to special education where she taught the severely and profoundly mentally handicapped.
George is a first-generation U.S. citizen. His father, a police office, was from Greece, and his mom, a waitress, was from Poland. While growing up, the family moved a lot, and George attended seven schools in one year. This didn’t slow him down, however. The first one in his family to attend college, George graduated from Fort Lewis College (Durango, Colorado) in 1964 with a degree in chemistry and biology.
Eleanor grew up in Durango. She excelled in school, graduating with her English degree from Fort Lewis College in 1965. This is where she and George met and married. Next, they moved to Corvallis, Oregon, where George worked on his master’s at Oregon State University. Then they moved to Laramie to continue graduate school—George in organic chemistry and Eleanor in English.
“My first year, I worked in the library in acquisitions under Gene Gressly,” says Eleanor. “Then I realized I might as well get paid for going to school to get a better degree. We lived in graduate student housing, and I just remember walking to campus with the wind in my face, my forehead freezing.”
George’s Ph.D. dissertation, Gas Phase Thermal Isomerizations, studied thermally induced molecular rearrangements and blurred the distinction between organic and physical chemistry. The process of getting a doctorate in chemistry was challenging. “It was long hard hours, and chemistry and physics were really long programs,” George says. “We were in poor times. They were short on money, equipment, and stipends.”
Eleanor’s master’s thesis was on John Knowles, the American novelist who wrote A Separate Peace, a coming-of-age novel about boys at a prep school. She wrote about how mythology influences the novel, particularly in initiation rituals. “My time at UW was thoroughly enjoyable,” Eleanor says.
After graduation, George and Eleanor moved to New Mexico and then to Missouri, where they are now retired. They had two daughters. Over the years, in addition to teaching, George has ranched, owned an oil jobbership, worked in a crime laboratory, and directed a medical laboratory that served 11 hospitals.
In 2006, George and Eleanor contributed $200,000, which was then doubled with state matching, to fund the Eleanor M. Kambouris Student Excellence Fund in English and the J. George Kambouris Student Excellence Fund in Chemistry. These endowments provide graduate students in both departments with fellowships and grants for research and travel, with some left over to help promising undergraduates.
“The money spent on TAs is the most effective,” George says. “A lot of investments go toward bricks and mortar, but the problem is to fill them with people. You’ve got buildings but no warm bodies.”
In 2008, the Eleanor M. Kambouris Student Excellence Fund in English helped three graduate students fly to New York City to attend the Associated Writing Programs conference, an annual event that brings together writers from around the world. The J. George Kambouris Student Excellence Fund in Chemistry is being held to fund students in the future.
The Kambourises believe that education is an investment. It improved their lives and will improve the lives of countless others. “We were lucky and wanted go give back,” Eleanor says. “We figured we had the money. We might as well use it for students going to school—We’ve been under those conditions and people helped us.” George adds, “We want to help students get ahead and have a good life.”
Photo:
A Chemistry Student
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009
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