Deborah and Stuart Anderson will be the first to tell you that they are not officially former students, but they became Aggies as fast as they could. Now, as an acknowledgment of Stuart’s 30 years of service to Texas A&M, his wife Deborah has established the Dr. Stuart D. and Deborah F. Anderson Endowed Fellowship in Civil Engineering. The endowment will be used to support graduate students pursuing a civil engineering degree with a focus on construction engineering and management.
“Even though we are not former students we are die-hard Aggies,” Deborah said. “We love the Aggie community and feel strongly about the values that Texas A&M stands for. This contribution was a great way to honor Stu for his long years of service to Texas A&M and both of us felt it was important that we also continue to impact the lives of future graduate students in his field.”
Stu is no stranger to impacting others. Coming to the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M in 1989 with more than a decade in the design and construction industry, he was looking to get into an academic setting to give back to others through his practical experience.
Stu was able to leverage his time in industry in both classroom and research applications, but the most valuable component to him was the service aspect of teaching and the impact it made on future students. It was with this mindset he served as a professor of civil engineering in the department under the construction engineering and management discipline for 27 years. He later served as an assistant vice chancellor for facilities planning and management for the Texas A&M College of Engineering for last three years of his career. The position allowed Stu to be instrumental in assisting with the Zachry Engineering Education Complex and the Center for Infrastructure Renewal.
As the Andersons look forward, they are hopeful that the endowment will make a positive impact on future engineers in the same way Stu’s teaching legacy has had on civil engineering graduate students.
“Texas A&M as a university has made such an impact on both of us that we want that impact to continue,” Stu said. “The camaraderie and everything that A&M represents to us is how we feel about this university and we are very proud to be a part of the Aggie family.”