Campaign Bulletin - October 2008

In This Issue

Dear Friends:

If you are receiving this e-newsletter for the first time, welcome. This e-newsletter is the best way to stay on top of our progress in this crucial fundraising campaign. Each issue contains pictures and stories about the people who have helped us along the way through their remarkable generosity. You will also find stories about students and faculty: stories about hard work, transformation, fulfillment of dreams, and giving back to Worcester State College. We hope you enjoy reading it, and we plan to send you several issues over the course of the next nine months. This fall, the Opportunity for a Lifetime: A Campaign for the Future of Worcester State College concludes its quiet phase and launches the public phase on October 16, 2008. With $7.81 million of the $10 million goal pledged, we are well on our way. There are a number of important updates in this issue of the e-newsletter, and I encourage you to read on. Let me first share with you two highlights:

• In the last fiscal year, generous alums, friends, foundations and corporations made fundraising history at Worcester State College by giving or pledging an historic $4 million.
• On the College’s Opening Day, we viewed the Opportunity for a Lifetime video that describes the $10 million campaign’s objectives: endowment funds, scholarship, and academic development. This occasion launched the effort to provide WSC faculty and staff with the opportunity to participate in the campaign.

This will be an exciting year as we engage with many more prospective campaign supporters. Together, we can look forward to continued success.

Sincerely,

Thomas M. McNamara ’94
Vice President of Institutional Advancement

P.S. If this newsletter leaves you wanting more, many details of the Opportunity for a Lifetime campaign are available at www.worcester.edu/opportunity. You may also contact me with your inquiry at (508) 929-8033 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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Gregg and Pamela Rosen

Couple’s Latest Gift Bolsters Unrestricted Endowment

Gregg ’86 and Pamela (Swartz) Rosen ’87 met while they were students at WSC. The Rosens recently pledged $220,000 to build the Worcester State Foundation’s unrestricted endowment. Their understanding and memory of the financial challenge of paying for college first led the Rosens to endow a scholarship in 2005, and now this pacesetting commitment gift will help the college provide future students with a high-quality education. Gregg serves as vice president of the Foundation Board, is a co-chair of the Opportunity for a Lifetime campaign, and he chairs the campaign’s Endowment Committee. He is president of the NES Group, a company that specializes in all aspects of bank design and construction. Pam is a stay-at-home mother of three wonderful children.

Gregory Benoit, the 2007 recipient of The Olivia Rochelle Spencer Memorial Scholarship, with Director of Diversity Edna Spencer, the late Olivia Spencer’s mother

Increase in Scholarship Aid Coincides with Student Need

The WSC Financial Aid Office received a record-high 1,700 applications for scholarship aid from more than 200 students in fiscal year 2007. The Foundation awarded a total of $435,000 in scholarship aid in the 2006-2007 academic year and $466,000 in the 2007-2008 academic year. These numbers represent our commitment to our students and an enormous increase from the 1998 total of $15,000 in aid for only 15 students. However, there is more to be done to reach the level of student aid the College wishes to provide. The recent student loan crisis highlights the importance of the campaign’s goal to raise $4 million for student scholarships.

"Worcester State students can be key components in this growth because they come from this area and tend to stay here after graduation.”

- Warner S. Fletcher

The Stoddard Charitable Trust green chemistry grant

Four years ago, WSC was the first area college to adopt a green chemistry curriculum for its organic chemistry labs. To support this program, The Stoddard Charitable Trust has made a $200,000 grant for the purchase of key program equipment such as a rapid-scanning, stop-flow spectrophotometer and an analytical ultracentrifuge system. The program was started by Associate Professor of Chemistry Margaret Kerr, a Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of the 2008 George I. Alden Excellence in Teaching Award. The green chemistry program emphasizes the use of alternative, nontoxic chemical processes and hands-on undergraduate research providing new learning possibilities for chemistry majors as well as nursing, health and biotechnology students. In awarding the grant, Stoddard Charitable Trust Chairman Warren S. Fletcher noted, “Certainly now the higher education institutions of Central Massachusetts appear to offer a stable and more predictable foundation for new economic growth opportunities than ever before. Worcester State students can be key components in this growth because they come from this area and tend to stay here after graduation.”

“What a wonderful message it would be...if we could tell our graduating seniors in May that the entire faculty is so committed to their success, that we too have made a contribution to this campaign.”

- Carol Donnelly, Ed.D.

Faculty and Staff Campaign Aims to Boost Participation

This fall and early winter, the Opportunity for a Lifetime campaign invites members of the WSC faculty and staff to join the over 5,000 donors to date in helping this historic fund raising effort reach unprecedented levels of participation. Vice President of Institutional Advancement Tom McNamara helped celebrate the College’s Opening Day, saying that “donors, foundations and corporations like to see evidence of strong, internal support for campaigns when they consider making a grant. Every gift from faculty and staff members, regardless of size, matters.” Michael Wronski, director of foundation and corporate relations, is spearheading this effort and will be visiting with College departments over the fall term. He is assisted by volunteer Co-Chairs Francis “Tuck” Amory, Carol Donnelly, Elaine Dukes, and Carol Dumais. "What a wonderful message it would be - to the alumni who have already given generously, to the foundations from whom we are just beginning to receive support we deserve, and to the businesses which benefit from the quality of our students - if we could tell our graduating seniors in May that the entire faculty is so committed to their success, that we too have made a contribution to this campaign," Donnelly said at Opening Day. To help boost the participation rate, the Payroll Department has made it easier to make a gift or pledge, over time, through payroll deduction.

Mary K. Alexander (l) and Lillian Goodman

New Fellowship Named to Support Aspiring Faculty

Lillian Goodman, Ed.D., and Mary K. Alexander, Ph.D., spent their careers developing nursing programs at area colleges, including nearly two decades at WSC. Their work continues in retirement as they advocate for creative solutions to the current shortage of nursing faculty. Lillian joined WSC in 1973 to establish the area’s first baccalaureate nursing program; Mary K. joined the department in 1974. Even as they focused on baccalaureate and graduate nursing education, they were always mindful of the struggle to attract nurses to academe and teaching. Today this is their main focus. By giving a gift to establish The Drs. Lillian R. Goodman & Mary K. Alexander Faculty Fellowship Fund, they are addressing the critical need for nursing faculty. This fund will “provide financial assistance for faculty in the nursing department who are pursuing a Ph.D. in nursing. It will give [faculty] an incentive and help defray some of the cost of their education,” Mary K. explained. Lillian added, “This was a very meaningful avenue for us to pursue” given our myriad interests related to nursing education.

Kenneth Sanderson

Profile in Achievement

Since it was founded in 1874, WSC has attracted hardworking, gifted students of modest means. Many of them saw living with parents as an opportunity to lower their college expenses. This remains an option for some students. Kenneth Sanderson, for example, commutes to WSC from his parents' home in Spencer. He is a mathematics major and physics minor with a 3.991 GPA and a recipient of the Lt. Col. James F. Sheehan '55 USMC Ret. Academic Excellence Award for two consecutive years. Ken's years at WSC have been filled with many opportunities to hone his mathematical skills. Currently, he is teaching three elementary algebra courses at WSC. He has also served as a tutor in the WSC Math Lab and worked part-time as a data entry technician at UMass Medical School. Ken's past internships include tutoring a third-grade student for the Chandler Magnet School's Mathematics Department and working for the Department of Defense. His work on several research problems has been published in Mathematics Magazine, College Mathematics Journal and The American Mathematical Monthly. In his spare time, Ken enjoys skiing, golfing, and playing tennis. He says he is thinking about pursuing a doctorate in mathematics after he receives his degree from WSC in the spring.