A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR LEGACY FUND
In 2010 when Junia Gratiot Hedburg was winding up her term as class president,
she established a Class Fund to support international outreach from Wellesley. Incoming president Missy Rives Moore, who had recently retired from managing a college endowment fund, suggested that we expand Junia's idea into a Class of 1960 Endowed Fund. Other officers of 1960 (including Junia who, as past-president, often met with them) agreed.
At Wellesley a named fund can be managed within the overall endowment if it is valued at a certain minimum -- at that time, $100,000. We decided to start raising the money, though at the time it seemed like a daunting figure. By our next Reunion in 2015 our class had enthusiastically reached the required amount.
Next step was to choose how our fund's income would be spent. The College offered us several choices, programs we could help to sponsor. In 2013 a vibrant new project, the WE Lab, had launched. Amy Banzaart came from MIT to develop a class introducing engineering principles applied with a liberal arts overview and an international outreach component.
Dr. Banzaart's class has been profoundly successful at Wellesley. She has been lauded for her skill at incorporating engineering into the curriculum and for her excellence as a teacher and mentor. The Class of 1960 has been instrumental in supporting the WE Lab from its early years.
--MARI WRIGHT. Wellesley Fund Representative for 1960
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