Construction science students and professors are now reaping the rewards of endowments established during Texas A&M’s last fund-raising campaign, Capturing the Spirit. During that campaign, Sandy and Bryan Mitchell ’70 of Fort Worth endowed a scholarship, fellowship, professorship and faculty chair in construction science.

Mitchell Professor Charles Graham said the Mitchell endowments have had a tremendous effect on the department’s ability to recruit and retain outstanding students, including scholarship holder Courtney Cox, a sophomore from Houston (right), and fellowship holder Keshav Vasudevan, a master’s student in construction management from India (left). “Our graduate program is the largest it’s ever been,” Graham said. “A lot of that is due to the Mitchell gifts.”

The Mitchell Fellowship benefits graduate students who utilize advanced technology for their research projects. Vasudevan said that his project involves “creating software to help define water main pipe sizes for residential buildings.” Vasudevan said that his dream job would be in onsite work, such as project manager for a large industrial project.

Cox said, “I’m putting myself through school, so the Mitchell Scholarship is awesome. It takes away some of the financial pressures so I can really focus on my schoolwork. I’m studying all aspects of construction as well as architecture history, because someday I’d like to go into historical preservation or custom homebuilding.”