Elmhurst University Gets Biggest Gift Ever From Living Donors

ELMHURST, IL — Two brothers with long ties to Elmhurst University are giving the school $3.4 million to start a program that will introduce more STEM students to careers in the military while also supporting student veterans on campus, the university announced Thursday.

The donors are Robert Jans of Brookfield and Elmhurst University alumnus Tim Jans of Elmhurst. Their gift represents the largest the school has received from living donors. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

The brothers both recently retired. They were the longtime owners of the Cook-DuPage Transportation Co., which provided mobility-limited transportation. They founded the company in 1973, after Robert Jans served in the military and as Tim Jans was finishing his senior year in Elmhurst.

“I enjoyed my years at Elmhurst, and got help to be able to stay at a time when my family couldn’t make the payments,” Tim Jans said in a university news release. “Now’s the time to give back.”

According to the news release, Robert Jans is a longtime supporter of military education and the current chairman of the Defense Orientation Conference Association, a nonprofit that educates civic and business leaders on defense, foreign policy and national security issues.

Over the years, as Robert Jans visited military installations for his work with the association, he frequently heard about the need for more enlistees with STEM backgrounds, and wanted to do something to better connect talented students with potential careers in the military, the release said.

“I’d hear from my military connections about losing these students to Silicon Valley or Wall Street, even though they could enter jobs in the military field at a high level and find them to be lucrative and impactful,” he said.

According to the university news release, the money will be spent on:

• The Jans Family Endowed Internship Fund, which will support students pursuing internships in science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics at a military or U.S. Department of Defense-oriented institution. The scholarship could be used to augment internship wages, reduce transportation or housing costs, or in any other ways that would remove financial impediments to pursuing the internships. The fund would expand experiential opportunities for STEM students by exposing them to career options they might not have considered before, while attracting new faces to important careers that serve national security and defense.
• The Jans Director of Military and Veterans Affairs, a new position that would direct and manage the military-oriented internship placements while also providing support and resources to student veterans on campus.
• The Jans Military and Veterans Center, a dedicated space on campus (potentially in Memorial Hall, which was named in commemoration of those who served in World War I) that will house the director of military and veterans affairs and also provide a gathering space for military and veteran students.