Wendl Foundation Blog

Wendl Foundation has completed a donation to St John Vianney High School (Kirkwood MO) of a copy of the 8 volume set Encyclopedia of Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics .

Educational materials are an increasing barrier to learning for the eager student. Retail prices of textbooks have risen at rates far greater than inflation for more than 2 decades ( Pioneer Institute | Problem: Overpriced Textbooks, Solution: Opensource Material ) and these increases have pushed the affordability of proper learning materials out of reach for many students. As one part of its larger educational mission in our local community, the Wendl Foundation seeks to help alleviate these barriers through the authoring and free distribution of high-caliber academic textbooks. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Wendl Foundation’s first free textbook “Conduction and Convection Heat Transfer” published in 2012. Distributed from various sources, including ResearchGate , the book (see above) has been used in engineering and physics classrooms for the past decade and has received glowing testimonials . As with many offerings in the growing open-source culture, this book has been released under a Creative Commons copyright license , which allows anyone (especially students) to download and use it for free. While not able to compete with larger projects like OpenStax in terms of the sheer numbers of free books offered, the Foundation is proud of a somewhat different distinction that is extremely uncommon among free books: Conduction and Convection has actually been used as a scientific reference in research work. According to Google Scholar , it has been cited by more than a dozen research papers and graduate theses. The Wendl Foundation will be continuing its efforts in the distribution of high quality educational material useful to both students and private educational institutions. This benevolent activity is a logical extension of its broader mission of improving quality of life through education and other forms of personal development consistent with the dignity of the human person.

Although the Wendl Foundation primarily works to underwrite computer hardware and IT support for both under-resourced schools and to children of low-income families within the City of St Louis, it also looks for other charitable opportunities, including assisting St Louis non-profit institutions with their educational missions. One such mechanism is donating educational and/or informational materials. We recently became aware that Saint Louis University (SLU) holds the Journal of Composite Materials, but that its collection is missing a number of volumes. The Foundation happened to hold several of these volumes in its own archives and contacted SLU Dean of Libraries, David Cassens, to inquire about donating these volumes toward SLU completing its holdings of this journal. Dean Cassens enthusiastically accepted and connected Edgar Thomas, SLU Senior Library Associate, with Michael Wendl, a Wendl Foundation trustee.