U Akron Social Justice Fund

The Vice President for Inclusion and Equity and Diversity and Chief Diversity Officer (Dr. Sheldon B. Wrice) oversees The University of Akron Foundation’s Social Justice Fund founding document. 

Dr. Wrice has broad discretion to use the funds for scholarships, fees, books, technology, on-campus housing, and meal expenses. It also includes hiring tutors and student assistants, fostering mentoring relationships, and mental health services. We also aspire to invest some Fund money to encourage middle and high school students to choose The University of Akron. 

You can make tax-deductible donations to the Fund in two categories: 

1. Awards that make the money immediately available to the Office of Multicultural Development. 

2. Endowments, such as from a will/trust. The Foundation will invest these funds for the long term. Currently, endowment money becomes available to the OMD at 4.25 %/year, although we designed the Fund to give Dr. Wrice the freedom to tap the principal when needed.

3. You can make a tax-deductible donation by sending it to

The University of Akron 

Department of Development 

Akron, OH 44325-2603

Memo line: Social Justice Fund

(that's right, no street name needed)

Also, you can contact the Department of Development directly at  330.972.7238 or development@uakron.edu.

The Fund's Story

Kids, teens, and young adults need multiple chances to succeed. When they fall, adults must lift them up, dust them off, and encourage them to try again. We have become increasingly aware that systemic racism cheats many brown and black young adults from the resources necessary to thrive. At best, they get one chance; we want to give them more. So, we decided to do something about the generational wealth problem. Here is our story.

We have two biological children. Our estate initially designated a moderate amount to charity and divided the remainder between our two children. In 2021, we revised that strategy to elevate charity to a "third child," directing the funds to support young people lacking the benefit of generational wealth. Then, we further subdivided the “third child’s” share into three parts. 

The largest part goes to The University of Akron Foundation’s Social Justice Fund, which serves young adults through the Office of Multicultural Development Department. Half the remainder goes to the East Toledo Family Center, earmarked for preschool and at-risk children's programs. It’s in a bleak part of the mid-sized urban city where we grew up and very close to the two churches we attended as kids. The rest goes to Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, which targets marginalized people of all ages in over 160 countries. We have a history of supporting all three organizations.  

Why the University of Akron?

1. I attended the university and benefited from “wraparound services” before these had a name. The university has had a modest place in our estate plan for decades. 

2. I graduated in 1969 with a BS in electrical engineering. The school treated me well with a tuition scholarship. It prepared me for a challenging career in Silicon Valley, where I developed integrated circuits for consumer and industrial applications for fifteen years at National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments). I spent the next five years among the founders of a startup company, Cadence Design Systems, in the computer-aided design software sector. And I’ve spent all the years since in Christian ministry.

3. One day, a University of Akron Foundation representative called me to verify that the university remained in our estate plan. So I asked, “Do you have any way we might help fund some Black reparations?” She didn’t know the term, so I suggested she contact someone in the African-American studies department and get back to me. A couple of weeks later, she called. That led us to create the Social Justice Fund as part of the foundation.

4. Though we’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 1970s, we still care about our home state of Ohio. We like that the University of Akron is a mid-sized school in a mid-sized midwestern city with an excellent demographic. Since engaging with Akron, Intel has committed to building a massive semiconductor campus in Ohio that will generate countless great jobs for decades. Intel’s biggest problem will be finding quality workers. That’s one of many great career paths for today’s black and brown Akron grads.

5. Before we got involved, The University of Akron had already proved its commitment to social justice by establishing Dr. Sheldon Wrice as the Vice President of Inclusion and Equity. Under his direction, the Office of Multicultural Development already operated in the area of our interest. But it needed money to scale. So, we began supporting that work.

Tim’s “wraparound services” story

1. Robin and I graduated high school in 1964 from a Toledo suburb, and I applied to a few colleges. I had never heard of the University of Akron. But I read a little and applied in a manner that must have included an application for a scholarship. In a few weeks, I received a letter of acceptance and an offer for a tuition scholarship contingent on grades. 

2. I lived in the dorms for the first two years before moving off-campus. The courses were intense, and studying in the dorms was impossible. So, a few of us started studying together in vacant classrooms at night and often into the morning. The custodians made space for us by working around us every night. Thanks to those guys!

3. Near the end of my sophomore year, I faced a fork in the road. One path promised to solve my short-term money concerns, but I suspected it might lead to a dead-end career. Robin, my fiance, suggested I make an appointment and ask the Dean of Engineering for advice. I was intimidated, but I made an appointment with Dean Rzasa. He listened politely before asking me one question, “If you were graduating today and had five job offers, and the one that’s tempting you now was one of them, would you seriously consider it?” Immediately, I responded, “No.” Then he said, “You just answered your question.” He was right. I stayed the course. The co-op program that started the following fall relieved my money concerns, and I was free to pursue a more exciting and surprisingly lucrative career.

4. Professor Joe Edminister was a favorite among us EE students. He took an interest in us outside the classroom, even inviting us into his home a few times for IEEE meetings. In the spring of my senior year, he stopped me in the hall to ask if I’d accepted a job yet. I told him yes and where, and his face fell. He said, “Tim, you can do better than that.” I brushed him off. That night, I talked with my wife (yep, the ex-fiance). I told her about the hallway conversation. She asked what I would do with Professor Joe’s advice. I waffled. Robin said, “But you always speak highly of him; why wouldn’t you listen to him?” The next day, I reconnected with Professor Joe. The placement office had closed for the season, but Professor Joe set me up with about 11 interviews, resulting in many better offers than the one I had planned to take. Without Professor Joe, I would never have found the integrated circuit industry in its formative years. I worked for two years at GE in upstate NY; then, we moved to California’s San Francisco Bay area, aka Silicon Valley, where we still live.

5. There’s one other significant item from my Akron University days. I signed up as a volunteer math tutor for the Akron Tutorial Project, which sent some of us to under-resourced parts of the city to help struggling students with math. On Wednesday nights, I went to a church and tutored algebra to under-resourced high school students from a nearby orphanage. This experience stuck with me enough that after retirement, I returned to coaching middle and high school math to immigrant and refugee students living in Section 8 housing in San Jose, California.

6. Thinking back through the previous paragraphs, you’ll see a thread of primitive wraparound services that made a massive difference in my life and career. So when we saw the wraparound services that the Office of Multicultural Development offers and met Dr. Wrice and his team, we were hooked. 

Tim & Robin Isbell, 3/29/2023, revised 11/21/2023