{"id":57113,"date":"2022-01-24T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T17:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/?page_id=57113"},"modified":"2023-08-23T23:02:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T03:02:32","slug":"why-give","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/giving\/why-give\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Our Donors Give"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jane & Mark Roberts: A Shared Commitment<\/h2>\n

It was at the Cabot Elementary School in Newton, Mass., where Jane (\u201973) began her career as a student teacher finishing her degree from Wheelock College, and Mark (\u201976, Questrom\u201985), fresh out of Brown University, got his first job. The two quickly became a couple.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to be an elementary school teacher,\u201d says Jane, who was born in Boston.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Old
Photo by Rebecca Stumpf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Mark, teaching was a revelation, setting him on a career path he hadn\u2019t envisioned. He decided to go to Wheelock for a graduate degree in education, then later pursued an MBA at BU and a career in corporate banking. But his passion for education never waned.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was a teacher who was playing banker in a three-piece suit,\u201d says Mark. So he returned to the classroom. He joined the Questrom School of Business faculty after leaving Fleet Bank in 2003. He retired from Questrom in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

The couple joined the board of trustees at Wheelock, which hadn\u2019t yet merged with BU, in 2011, after Jane had retired. There, they saw the growing need for financial aid, so they established the Roberts Family\u00a0 Endowed Scholarship Fund, supporting Boston residents seeking a career in education. BU\u2019s Century Challenge will match the fund\u2019s spendable income for 100 years. Because of the match, the Robertses decided to increase their commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe literally looked at each other and said, this is what we need to be doing,\u201d Jane says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By Michael McDonald<\/em><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Fung: Honoring Mentors, Past and Future<\/h2>\n
\"Elizabeth
Photo by Chris McIntosh for Boston University Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born in mainland China, Elizabeth Fung (\u201961) grew up in Taiwan and came to Wheelock College at 16. \u201cI was not fluent in English,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I did know some because my parents were in diplomatic service.\u201d Still, she struggled in literature classes\u2014particularly with Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

So Professor S. Wilcox Harvey, who was teaching English at Wheelock, started tutoring her every Saturday morning. \u201cHe did it for my whole freshman year,\u201d marvels Fung. \u201cHe was a very understanding and supportive person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fung has endowed the S. Wilcox Harvey Faculty Mentorship Fund to encourage BU Wheelock faculty to follow Harvey\u2019s example. The fund will support training resources, workshops, conferences, and other professional development related to mentoring students.<\/p>\n

Fung chose to honor her professor, she says, \u201cbecause Dr. Harvey was so consistent and dependable, and he made me feel very hopeful that things would work out.\u201d She credits that early support for her successful career in social work and adds, \u201cNow that I have retired, I can understand more the kindness he showed by taking time every Saturday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds so much like him. He was one of those people who always found time for you,\u201d says the professor\u2019s great-nephew, Steve Harvey. \u201cWhen I heard about the gift, I was just thrilled, because he\u2019s one of the most special people in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to Fung, he\u2019ll be remembered as a special person at BU Wheelock, too.<\/p>\n

By Louise Kennedy<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jane & Mark Roberts: A Shared Commitment It was at the Cabot Elementary School in Newton, Mass., where Jane (\u201973) began her career as a student teacher finishing her degree from Wheelock College, and Mark (\u201976, Questrom\u201985), fresh out of Brown University, got his first job. The two quickly became a couple. \u201cI always wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8572,"featured_media":0,"parent":65561,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"bu-publication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57113"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71628,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57113\/revisions\/71628"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=57113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}