Richard Kinder donates $25 million to MU for teaching, studying U.S. Constitution

Richard Kinder, Cape Girardeau native and co-founder of energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan, has gifted $25 million to the University of Missouri through the Kinder Foundation, university officials announced Thursday.

The new, endowed gift establishes the Kinder Institute, which supports the teaching and study of the U.S. Constitution.

The institute, formerly named the Kinder Forum, was created in 2014 by a previous $1.67 million gift from the foundation through the Jack Miller Center, according to a university news release.

"We hope to really make this Kinder Institute a real center for studying constitutional democracy, the founding of the country, and it's really going to help at both the undergraduate and graduate level," Kinder said during an interview last week.

The institute offers postdoctoral fellowships, research and travel grants, course development funds and the Kinder Scholars Program, which includes a summer academic internship in Washington, D.C. The institute also offers an interdisciplinary minor to undergraduate students in American constitutional democracy.

"The whole genesis of it was that I felt that we're just not giving enough attention in universities today to what really makes America an exceptional country," Kinder said. "I have no political bias in this, but just would like to see a better understanding. And, hopefully, you educate a lot of people in this kind of thinking and they influence other people in terms of getting people to think about what formed America, what the founders really thought, how we started this country. To me, it's really important to put the whole thing in perspective."

Kinder, of Houston, is the co-founder and executive chairman of Kinder Morgan, the largest midstream and the third largest energy company in North America. His wife, Nancy, is president of the Kinder Foundation, established in 1997.

A 1962 graduate of Central High School, Kinder received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Missouri and once was a member of the Limbaugh Firm in Cape Girardeau.

In 2010, the Kinders donated $1 million to the Cape Girardeau Public Schools Foundation to expand and enhance the Richard D. Kinder Performance Hall at Central High School.

University of Missouri officials said the Kinders' donation is the third largest academic gift in Mizzou history and will have an enormous effect on the university's comprehensive campaign, Mizzou: Time to Lead.

"One of MU's primary missions as a state university is to promote and provide education on our government and its history for its students and the population as a whole," MU chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said in the release. "The Kinders' philanthropy and vision will help position MU as a national center for education and scholarship on our governance system's funding and purpose."

Kinder said he hopes the gift to MU will encourage other alumni to contribute to the universities from which they graduated, as well.

"Because of budgetary constraints, the amount of money that's now given to state colleges and universities has really gone way down," Kinder said. "So, you have to make up for that someplace if you're still going to have a quality public university. And you can only raise tuition so far before you begin to exclude students. ... With that shortfall in the amount of state money, you've got to look to the private sector to make up some of that difference. Hopefully, this is a small step in trying to do that, and I hope others will do the same thing."

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