Academic Departments

Scholarship Fund

Hello Alumni, Mentors, and Friends of the Aristotle Fund,

I am pleased to announce a scholarship that will directly benefit the University of St. Thomas Aristotle Fund.  Those of you who were able to attend the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Aristotle Fund in May heard about the generous gift by Michael Reger, an alumnus of UST.  Mike, founder and CEO of Northern Oil and Gas (NOG), donated 50,000 shares of NOG stock (currently valued at approximately $600,000) to the University of St. Thomas, for the benefit of both UST Aristotle Fund student managers and undergraduate Finance students.

The gift will initially be used to establish an endowment to offset tuition for the Aristotle Fund students.  In addition, in time, we hope it will fund activity fees associated with the Fund, such as trips to visit company management and investment industry conferences for the student managers of the Aristotle Fund.

Needless to say, as an educator, this is a dream come true for me.  While I have wanted a way for gifting that would directly impact the Aristotle Fund, I also realized it would take a very large contribution to get it initially funded.  Thanks to this gift from Mike, we now have the “seed money” needed to begin growing such an endowment.

Many of you have heard me say that I think it is unfair to charge Aristotle Fund student managers for credits to enroll in this class when they are providing such a valuable service to the University.  In addition, I have for years been interested in funding trips to investment conferences and company meetings, which we have accomplished only some of the years of the Fund’s existence.  Through Mike’s very generous gift, this endowment helps move the Aristotle Fund towards having the funding needed every year to provide this opportunity for all student managers.

Before I conclude, let me tell you a bit about Mike.  I had the good fortune of having Mike in three classes over his academic career (okay, I know some of you are saying he is a glutton for punishment!).  Mike is what I affectionately refer to as a double T, a two-time Tommie.  He has both his BA and his MBA from UST.  Since leaving UST, Mike has had quite the illustrious career as a self-proclaimed “land man.”  His most recent accomplishment is as founder and CEO of Northern Oil and Gas Company (his company website is www.northernoil.com), a publicly-traded company based out of Wayzata, MN.

To access the Aristotle Fund Scholarship, use the link below to enter your personal information and then press "continue". You will then see the option for the Aristotle Fund Scholarship under my name in the list of "Other Gift Areas". It should automatically be selected if you use the link below.

 https://webapp.stthomas.edu/OnlineGiving/?devType=dev&devID=234. 

I am proud to say I was the first person to make an additional contribution to the scholarship in honor of all the alumni of the fund.  Any contributions made to the scholarship will directly benefit the Aristotle Fund. 

Finally, I am very thankful to Mike and to all of you for helping to make the Aristotle Fund a fabulous educational experience for graduate students at UST.  If you have a Tuesday night free, please feel free to drop in on the Fund to share your wisdom and experience!

Sincerely,

Mary Schmid Daugherty