NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 27 number 1 - Fall 2006

Library Development: Honoring an Inventor, an Orchidologist, and a Carnivore Queen

By Anna Dahlstein, External Relations

North Carolina State Professor Michael Stoskopf describes his parents, Doris Janet Griffis and Cleve William Stoskopf Jr., as two highly creative individuals, and it is easy to see why. Before retiring to Kealakekua, Hawaii, Cleve Stoskopf was an inventor and mechanical engineer whose creations ranged from specialized drilling bits and water desalination techniques for the oil industry and the military to experimental aircraft and even a unique baseball pitching machine for his son's YMCA baseball team. "He was known affectionately by family, friends, and the neighborhood children as 'Mr. Wizard' for the way he could create a working solution to most any challenge from odds and ends that filled his garage or workshop," says Michael Stoskopf. In addition, the elder Stoskopf developed into a talented artist whose work explored light and shape in oil paintings, wood and metal sculptures, and ceramics.

Doris Stoskopf channeled her creativity and inquisitive spirit in other directions, including the cultivation of many orchid varieties and the exploration of world cultures, with a particular interest in the Hawaiian and Polynesian cultures. A linguist by education, she instilled a deep love of books, reading, and knowledge in her three children, Holly Dru Wilkens, J.D.; Cort Grae Stoskopf, M.D.; and Michael Kerry Stoskopf, D.V.M., Ph.D, Dipl. A.C.Z.M.

Evidently, the Stoskopfs passed on their creativity to their children as well. One way in which that legacy is evidenced is in the innovative endowments that the younger Stoskopfs established at the NCSU Libraries in memory of their parents.

The Doris J. Stoskopf Library Endowment provides for monographs pertaining to tropical horticulture and Hawaiian and Polynesian cultures to be added to the Kealakekua Branch Library as well as to the NCSU Libraries' collections. Through this novel arrangement, the endowment fulfils Mrs. Stoskopf's wish to contribute to both libraries. Each volume at NC State will bear a commemorative bookplate featuring a photograph of Doris Stoskopf working as a librarian early in her academic career, wreathed in a blooming orchid.

Meanwhile, as Michael Stoskopf explains, the Cleve William Stoskopf Jr. Endowment supports "not a traditional subject area, but more of a type of thinking" by providing for monographs and digital materials pertaining to invention, creativity, and the integration of arts with engineering and the sciences. Through this broad yet personally tailored approach, the endowment will enrich learning, research, and the assault on the frontiers of challenging problems across the university community.

Michael Stoskopf is a former chair of NC State's University Library Committee, the 1996 recipient of the NCSU Libraries' Faculty Award, and a current member of NC State's Library Building Committee. The professor of aquatics, wildlife, and zoological medicine and of molecular and environmental toxicology recently explained why he remains so committed to the Libraries. "Second to the faculty, the Libraries represents the largest intellectual resource on the campus. All research taking place at this university benefits from the Libraries."

Stoskopf and his wife, Suzanne Kennedy-Stoskopf became life members of the Friends of the Library in 2001, upon establishing Incubator Endowments in each other's honor. Kennedy-Stoskopf is a research professor of immunology and infectious diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine's Department of Population Health and Pathobiology and winner of the 2006 Association for Women Veterinarians' Outstanding Woman Veterinarian of the Year Award. To honor his wife's pioneering research on felids and other species-Stoskopf jokingly calls her "the Carnivore Queen"--he brought the Suzanne Kennedy-Stoskopf incubator for terrestrial wildlife health to full endowment status in the summer of 2006.

Stoskopf often encourages his colleagues to seize the opportunity to establish an incubator account to benefit the collections, pointing out that it requires an initial donation of only $1,000 and can be grown to full endowment status over the course of several years. "It's fantastic to have that kind of flexibility, allowing faculty--who are not as wealthy as some people may believe--to start an endowment without trepidation. Creating these sorts of trusts allows us to ensure that our disciplines have the resources to continue advancing," adds Stoskopf.

For more information on establishing an incubator or full endowment, please visit URL link www.lib.ncsu.edu/support/ or get in touch with the Director of Library Development Jim Mulvey at (919) 515-3339 or via electronic mail at jim_mulvey@ncsu.edu.