ASU Natural History Collections Fundraiser

Dr. Terry Maxwell

Funded completely by private donations, the Maxwell Endowment will generate funds to support activities associated with the Angelo State Natural History Collections (ASNHC), including student and faculty research projects and curating and maintaining the collections. The endowment currently stands less than $15,000 away from reaching fully endowed status, and an anonymous donor has pledged to match all new donations up to $7,500 to help reach the $100,000 goal. 

Donations to the Maxwell Endowment can be made online at www.angelo.edu/e-giving/ or by contacting the ASU Office of Development at 325-942-2116 or development@angelo.edu. 

The ASNHC contains more than 150,000 preserved specimens of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and plants from the Concho Valley, other regions of Texas, many other states, Mexico, Africa, Asia, Australia and even the Galápagos Islands. The collections aid student and faculty research projects, are used as teaching tools, and have been viewed by thousands of K-12 students through special guided tours. 

In 2012, ASU was awarded a $480,865 grant from the National Science Foundation to modernize and digitize the ASNHC and make all the specimens available to researchers and educators around the globe on worldwide online databases. The project was completed in July 2016. 

In 2017, the ASNHC Endowment was renamed the Terry C. Maxwell Endowment in Natural History in honor of Dr. Terry Maxwell, ASU professor of biology emeritus and long-time curator of the ASNHC’s Ornithology Collection, who passed away in April 2017.