Endowing Greatness
Defy Boundaries donors make long-lasting impacts with gifts that keep on giving
Helping students become international negotiators. Boosting faculty teaching excellence. Bringing award-winning guest journalists to classrooms. Bolstering education in Mandarin and the Chinese culture. Securing great coaches for the long-term with endowed funding. And changing forever Conn’s capacity to enroll the best students from every background. These are just a few of the many ways that day after day, gift after gift, donors to the Defy Boundaries campaign are transforming the range and quality of a Conn education. They are investing where their generosity can make the greatest difference, strengthening Conn and changing lives.
Already, with two years left to go in the campaign, Conn’s supporters have contributed more than 44,700 gifts to the College that total more than $240 million. This includes more than $110 million to the endowment, $60 million to capital projects, and $70 million for programming and the annual fund (see pages 16-17). The impact of this giving begins on campus and extends around the world.
Consider these two examples.
In 2019, Richard von Glahn ’75 wanted to honor two revered Conn professors whose teaching and influence changed his life, teaching him Chinese, inspiring him to complete his Ph.D. in Chinese history, and seminally influencing his decision to build what has become a distinguished career as a professor of history at UCLA. The two he had in mind were the late and beloved Charles Chu and Henry T.K. Kuo. Professor Chu first introduced the study of Mandarin Chinese at Conn in 1965, leading it to become one of the first undergraduate liberal arts colleges to offer a Chinese language and literature major. Together, he and Professor Kuo built an exceptional department and earned the lasting affection and respect of their students for their attentive and skilled teaching.
Von Glahn decided to advance their legacy and inspire other students by creating the Chu-Kuo Fellowship for Language Study. His gift has already supported three years’ worth of student fellowships in China—but that is only the beginning. Because von Glahn made his Defy Boundaries gift to an endowed fund, the Chu-Kuo Fellowship will carry forward the influence of two of Conn’s finest teacher-scholars for generations of students to come.
The Bessell Scholars Fund is another example of how campaign gifts take Conn’s influence around the world. Created by Diane Bessell ’59 through a series of planned gifts prior to her passing in 2020, this new, comprehensive, endowed fund spins off enough interest every year to fund junior-year internships, senior-year research projects, and campus events focused on international understanding, diplomacy and sustainable development.