Ceylin Arias/Staff Writer
Chad Moss, executive vice president of Moss & Associates, a privately-held construction firm based in Fort Lauderdale, announced in April during the annual Torch Award Gala that he would be donating $10 million to the College of Engineering & Computing, making it the largest donation ever made by an alumnus to the university, officials said.
Held every year, the Torch Award Gala honors FIU graduate donors who, using their profession, contribute to the community and the university. This year Moss was honored as the Alumni of the Year and according to Irtishad Ahmad, the school’s graduate program director, this is not the first time Moss contributes to the university.
Moss & Associates, he said, helped expand FIU’s residential community by constructing Parkview Hall, a project that was finalized in 2013.
Moss’s donation, Ahmad said, will benefit the Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and Sustainability in many ways including for the creation of scholarships that will be offered to the school’s students who are first-generation, veterans, and/or disadvantaged youth. A portion of the fund will also go towards the recruitment of a nationally distinguished director for the school.
These scholarships will also diversify the school’s undergraduate population, according to Wallied Orabi, the school’s undergraduate program director, and will help make their program stronger.
Provided in the course of five years, the Moss Foundation Scholarship Endowment will also support technology resources, professional education and industry programs, faculty and/or postgraduate research initiatives among other areas.
While Orabi said that the search for a new director is expected to begin in August when the school’s new dean starts, the donated money hasn’t been used yet.
“This money is not directly spendable,” Ahmad said. “The reason is because it is an endowment which means that the earnings from this money will be utilized for those purposes [Moss’s envision]. It will take a while to build money and then start earning from the endowment and then utilizing it but it will be continuous from now on.”
The fund will further enhance the education the school currently provides to its students and will create greater exposure to the school as one that has the top construction programs in the country.
Ahmad, however, considers the connection being made between the University and the Moss & Associates construction firm as the main benefit.
“[T]he more important thing is that we are connected,” Ahmad said. “The University is very much connected to the industry. The construction program is wanted in the construction industry in South Florida, which is the most vibrant construction sector in the entire world.”
The endowment will also help the school nationally, according to Orabi.
“At the national level, our school is already one of the best schools that have been accredited by American Councils for Construction Education,” Orabi said. “This kind of endowment … will definitely bring even more name recognition.”
Photo by Nicole Malanga/PantherNOW
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