The Smith College Class of 1978 fund committee proposes to establish an endowed scholarship fund for the education of exceptional women from developing and post-conflict countries, so that they may “fulfill their potential” as leaders of the International Community.
The goal of the Class of 1978 “Fulfill the Potential” Scholarship is to enable and encourage exceptional women from these countries to attend Smith College. We recognize that one of the greatest untapped resources in the world is the minds of women who live in countries that do not provide them with equal access to higher education. This fund would enable women of high ability and potential, who are living in countries the College has identified as developing/post-conflict nations, to contribute on a global and regional level as a result of their Smith education.
It is our hope that these Smith-educated women will shape the intellectual, social, scientific, economic, artistic and/or political environment of their homelands and nations throughout the world.
Class Goals
Short Term:
1. Establish a fundraising committee. This step is complete. The committee members are listed below. This initiative has the full support of the class fundraising agents and class officers.
2. Establish the path to endowment of the Fund with the College via this proposal.
3. Work with the Smith Fund to create an annual joint solicitation letter to be sent to our class members.
4. Contact our class members via mail, email, Website, phone, and Smith Club meetings to explain the project and raise funds.
5. Identify high profile Smith Alumnae and Faculty to act as advisors to and promoters of our fundraising project, e.g., Hoon Eng Khoo ’73, who is helping to create the Asian University for Women to educate women of developing countries. in Bangladesh
6. Allocate 2008-2009 Class of 1978 contributions to the Smith Fund, as designated or with no specific designation, to support scholarships for women from developing/post-conflict countries who are already at Smith.
Long Term:
1. 2009 –Initiate campaign for the Class of 1978 “Fulfill the Potential Endowed Scholarship” Fund.
2. 2013 – Raise $1.0M for the endowed fund by the time of our 35th reunion.
3. 2018 – Raise an additional $1.5M ($2.5M total) for the endowed fund by the time of our 40th reunion.
Detailed Description
The goal of the “Class of 1978 Fulfill the Potential Scholarship” campaign is to raise scholarship funds that will enable more women from developing/post-conflict countries to attend Smith College. Education expands the range of opportunities for women in these countries, allowing them to fulfill their potential as engaged, creative, productive contributors to the intellectual, economic, political, artistic and social advancement of their own countries and throughout the world. Having experienced the benefits of education in an all-women's school, the Class of 1978 recognizes the value of that experience and the empowering and enabling effect it has had on our lives and our ability to help others. Smith also taught us to give back, and we wish to support Smith by raising scholarship funds that will completely fund a Smith Education for women who would otherwise not have this opportunity. The funding would be available to women of high ability and potential, with demonstrated need as determined by the College, who are natives of developing/post-conflict countries.
We have titled our ambition "Fulfill the Potential" because of the great untapped resources in the minds of women who live in countries that do not provide them with equal access to higher education.
It is important to note that Smith College already devotes a portion of the funds raised through the Smith Fund to scholarships. Our goal is not to take away from those funds, but rather to expand the number of alumnae who are contributing to Smith for the specific purpose of raising the number of students attending the College from the developing world. Raising funds for an initiative that is already well-established by the Smith Fund allows us to harmonize our goals with theirs.
Our hope is that by increasing the overall amount of Class of 1978 contributions to the Smith Fund, we will also thereby enable the Fund tore-direct a significant percentage of overall contributions to support scholarships for women coming to Smith from within the U.S., as well. Thus we view our fundraising activities as having a beneficial impact on Smith's ability to recruit high quality candidates from all over the world, including the United States. It is critically important to leave the final selection of the “Fulfill the Potential” Scholarship candidates and distribution of scholarship funds according to the students’ needs to Smith.
The class of 1978 will also partner with other Alumnae and Faculty to identify and encourage young women from developing/post-conflict countries to apply for the scholarship.
We are engaged in this drive because we believe that a Smith College education for women of developing/post-conflict nations will significantly enhance their potential to contribute to the intellectual, social, scientific, economic, artistic, political, and physical well-being of the countries that they call home, and the rest of the world. Our goal is to give back – to these women and to the world – by helping provide the many benefits of a Smith education, which we are so grateful to have received ourselves.
Respectfully submitted by the Class of 1978 Fundraising Committee and Class Officers.
Carolyn Mohn McGee ‘78, Class President, carolyn.mcgee@att.net
Carrie Dohan Buchman ’78, Vice-president, cbuchman@att.net.
Sandi McRae Duchesne ’78, Vice-president, sandi.duchesne@jws.com
Stephanie Baldwin Urban '78, Secretary, sburban@hotmail.com
Anne Searls De Groot ’78; Fundraising Chair, Dr.Annie.DeGroot@gmail.com
Lynda Brown Herrig '78, herrigl@comcast.net
Elizabeth George ’78, egeorge115@comcast.net
Carolyn Hartwell O’Brien ’78, cobrien391@aol.com
Karen Stone ’78, klstone@snet.net
Background
In much of the developing world, girls represent an untapped resource and a hope for the future. Educating young women is a crucial component of building a foundation for democracy, and a is prerequisite for creating and sustaining free, open, prosperous societies. No country in which women's potential is left unrealized can thrive. That fact will grow ever more prominent as the world’s markets and societies continue to interconnect. Providing unhindered access to education for girls and women is fundamental to building stable, democratic, economically prosperous societies. Higher education for women is a crucial element in achieving political, economic and social progress in every region of the world. By some estimates, one-sixth of the world's population is illiterate. Two-thirds of those are women.
Gaps in educational opportunities between women and men are most profound in the Developing World, and increase significantly at higher levels of education, where women are particularly disadvantaged. Yet women have a powerful influence on the lives of their children and families, and help create a culture of justice, progress and achievement across societies. Governments with equal representation of women and men in decision making bodies have been shown to be less corrupt.
Enabling higher education for women will improve their representation in these decision-making bodies, which in turn will improve the probability that access to education will be distributed more fairly, and the gaps in realized potential for men and women will be diminished. Higher education is the catalyst for leadership. While advances have been made in primary and secondary education for women, it is higher education that can make the most profound difference to a nation.
Differences between access to education are especially evident at the university level. University education is expensive and generally remains elitist; most students are wealthy males. While family income is a primary enabler of education, depending on the country other factors, such as caste, ethnicity, language, regional origin, social custom and of course, gender, may contribute to unequal access and outcomes.
Gender differences in tertiary education are particularly marked in the Arab world, in some countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, and in South Asia. In the Republic of Yemen, for instance, the female enrollment in tertiary education is only 1 percent (of the total population), as opposed to 7 percent for men. In Bangladesh female students represent 24 percent of the student population in public universities; gender disparities are even stronger in the country’s private universities, where only 17 percent of all students (and less than 1 percent of all teachers) are female. There are gender disparities among countries within the same region.
Over the past two decades only a few countries (Argentina, Chile, Jordan, Kuwait, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela) have managed to move toward a higher female-to-male ratio while expanding overall tertiary enrollment. It is also common for female enrollment rates to conceal that many women in degree programs are preparing for low-income professions. In fact, “gender streaming” can be observed in all regions, including Latin America, where women are overrepresented in the humanities and in vocational and commercial/secretarial schools and underrepresented in science and engineering departments (Subbarao and others 1994). In Japan, women make up only 6.8% of the Ph.D. students in physics and 7.1% of those in engineering.
Sexual harassment is a common additional obstacle to the advancement of female education. In addition to economic barriers, schools are often located primarily in urban areas limiting or prohibiting access for rural students and even more so for female students; families can be less inclined to permit girls than boys to live outside the home in mixed-gender, urban environments. Many countries have addressed this constraint by providing boarding facilities segregated by gender, with adequate space to accommodate ever greater numbers of women. Single-sex higher education institutions for women are rare, and competition is intense for slots in those universities that do exist. Families with the means to send their daughters to institutions of higher education may hesitate if single-sex environments are not available - a factor in favor of families choosing institutions like Smith College over other scholarship opportunities in the United States.
Nations that marginalize half of their population cannot function and thrive as full democracies. Countries that ignore this vital source of human capital cannot be competitive in today's global economy. The education gap for girls in developing/post-conflict countries remains a collective global task.
By establishing the Class of 1978 "Fulfill the Potential" Endowment Scholarship funding drive, we are helping lay the foundation for a more sustainable, secure world.
