University of Michigan

An education in student philanthropy

As a high school student in Livonia, Michigan, half an hour northeast of Ann Arbor, Ryan Mack dreamed of earning a U-M degree in mechanical engineering. But money was tight, and Ryan saw only three options: attend a local school while living with his parents; take out a towering student loan; or give up on his educational ambitions.

What he didn’t count on was the power of donor support. Ryan’s U-M application earned him a need-based Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Scholarship, established to benefit Michigan Engineering students from nearby Wayne County. After his sophomore year a Carlos R. and Gloria W. Bell Scholarship kicked in to help support him through to graduation. A U-M Regents’ Scholarship and Michigan Engineering Fund award were also key to helping Ryan graduate debt-free.

The experience of receiving these scholarships piqued Ryan’s interest in philanthropy. As a freshman pledge at Phi Gamma Delta (also known as Fiji) he joined Greek Week, U-M’s decades-old fundraising competition for sororities and fraternities. The ten-day “Week” includes events ranging from paid-admission Mr. and Ms. Greek Week contests to the Can Castle Competition, in which chapters build elaborate fortresses from canned food that they then donate to a local food bank. Greek Week 2007 raised $74,000 for causes like Ele’s Place, which provides counseling and other services for grieving children and their families. “Once I got involved,” Ryan says, “it was exciting to see some of the charities and how much we can really benefit people in the community. A lot of times you only see the Greek system as one big party. So being able to benefit the community and be a part of it was really cool.”

After representing Fiji for three years, Ryan joined the Greek Week steering committee in his senior year. He and his fellow student-philanthropists also stood for 30 hours straight as part of last year’s U-M Dance Marathon (UMDM), which raised more than $350,000 to benefit pediatric rehabilitation programs at U-M’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Ryan Mack earned his dreamed-of mechanical engineering degree from U-M last spring. He’s now working in Kansas City, Missouri, for SPX Corporation, where he designs cooling solutions for office buildings and power plants. He’s also continuing his charitable work by participating in Red Cross blood drives and Fiji fundraisers, including their annual Rivalry Run. He credits U-M’s donor-created scholarships for giving him his start as both an engineer and a philanthropist.

“Getting those scholarships afforded me a kind of safety net,” Ryan says. “It really let me experience the whole of what college can give you.”