Bobbitts announce gift to UA

FAYETTEVILLE — Donald Bobbitt, president of the University of Arkansas System, and his wife, Susan, are giving $150,000 to support chemistry and theater graduate students at the University of Arkansas.

Their donation is being made as a deferred commitment known as a planned gift. Planned gifts, unlike pledges, can be tied to bequests and generally have no expected receipt date, said Jennifer Holland, the university’s director of development communications.

The donation will go toward supplementing graduate fellowship awards and helping pay for student travel, Holland said in an email. The gift will also pay for recruiting graduate students, among other areas of support, Holland said.

In 2002, the couple established a family fund now known as the Bobbitt Family Fund in Chemistry and Theatre, with the most recent gift going to bolster that fund.

Donald Bobbitt, 61, earned a bachelor’s degree from UA and taught chemistry at UA for 17 years. He is a former dean of UA’s J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and has been UA System president since 2011. Susan Bobbitt, 57, attended UA. She also formerly worked for the university, for seven years as costume shop manager.

“Higher education can change lives and change lives for future generations,” Bobbitt said in a statement. “Susan and I have tried to honor the institutions where we’ve lived or worked.”