Scott and Susan Brodie Donate $200,000 to Forever LSU Campaign to Benefit College of Basic Sciences, Honors College

(l. to r.) Kevin Carman, dean of the LSU College of Basic Sciences, Dr. Mary Lou Applewhite, Forever LSU campaign cabinet member for the College of Basic Sciences, Susan Brodie, Scott Brodie, and Nancy Clark, dean of the LSU Honors College.

April 21, 2009

BATON ROUGE –LSU and the Forever LSU campaign have announced a gift of $200,000 to the College of Basic Sciences from Scott and Susan Brodie of Spring, Texas. The gift will provide support to the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the College of Basic Sciences and the LSU Honors College.

The Brodie gift provides $140,000 in endowed funds to the Science Honors Scholars Program, which attracts top undergraduate students from Louisiana and around the United States to LSU. Participants in the program are dually enrolled in the College of Basic Sciences and the Honors College. The remaining $60,000 of the gift establishes the Scott and Susan Brodie Professorship in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The professorship donation will be complemented by an anticipated $40,000 match from the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund, to bring the total gift to $240,000.

"Scott and Susan’s gift will help us attract outstanding students and faculty to LSU. This donation represents their excitement about LSU’s academic achievements and their strong commitment to helping us better compete on a national level. They believe in the sustainability that endowment provides to our programs, and we are delighted that they are so generously supporting the College of Basic Sciences’ Forever LSU initiatives," said Kevin R. Carman, dean of the LSU College of Basic Sciences.

Originally from Kenton, Ohio, Scott Brodie earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from LSU in 1982. He is currently a geophysicist with Castex Energy, who specializes in 3D seismic operations, creating subsurface maps and discovering potential drilling sites for hydrocarbon resources. He has held similar positions with Superior Oil/Mobil Oil and Denbury Resources.

Scott and Susan Brodie have been married since in 1979. They have three children, Matthew, Meredith and Eric.

"We donate to LSU as a way to give back to the university for providing us with a great education," said Scott Brodie. "We hope to help attract the best and brightest students from within Louisiana and around the country, and provide them with the same educational opportunities we had. Through this effort, we hope LSU will continue its growth of academic excellence and be recognized nationally, as it was recently, with its new top tier status."

The Brodies are also members of the LSU Foundation and Alumni Association.

Support for LSU faculty and students, such as that provided by Scott and Susan Brodie, is critical to the future of LSU, and contributes to the goals of the Forever LSU campaign. Forever LSU is an historic fundraising effort which will generate more than $750 million in support for LSU by the end of the year 2010, helping LSU maintain its Tier 1 status among American universities. To learn more about the goals of Forever LSU and how to join the campaign for LSU’s future, visit www.foreverlsu.org.