The Florida Institute of Technology, known as Florida Tech, is an independent technological university based on the Space Coast in Melbourne, Florida. In 1997, the F.W. Olin Foundation awarded Florida Tech $50 million - one of the largest single grants ever made by a foundation to a university in the United States. Now, a unique opportunity has arisen for the establishment of a Christian endowment, with the funds raised to be matched dollar for dollar by the Olin Foundation!

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The Initiative for a Christian Endowment

To complement the facilities on Florida Tech's 130 acre grounds, a portion of the F.W. Olin Foundation grant has been used to build an advanced engineering complex and a life sciences building. In addition, the sum of $25 million has been allocated as a challenge grant to augment the university's scholarships, professorships, and academic programs. Florida Tech has launched a campaign with a goal of raising $25 million to match this challenge. Now there is a chance for Christian-oriented programs to participate within this endowment.

Spearheading the Initiative for a Christian Endowment is Florida Tech's Protestant Campus Ministry (PCM). Planning guidance is offered by an informal task force drawn from many areas of academic and professional interest, including engineering, medicine, law, church leadership, ethics, and physics.

ICE is currently building two endowment funds. The first, which will fund PCM, is in progress. Our vision statement for that fund is as follows:

To expand PCM's effectiveness in providing a spiritual witness, practical resource, and Godly wisdom to the multinational campus community. Our call is to present the transforming power of Christ, so students and employees may lovingly serve the Lord and others.
The second endowment fund which ICE is preparing is for the purpose of endowing a Chair in Ethics for Florida Tech. The vision statement for that part of our work is the following:

To integrate a transcendent standard for ethics, morals, and behavior into the higher education process as an essential guide for the advancement of human endeavor via a permanently endowed ethics chair.