Faces of Philanthropy: Treasure

Gifts of treasure are rarely about just money. They’re about serving future generations.

The value of studying classics

Grinnell College trustee M. Anne Campbell Spence ’66 made a career for herself as a research geneticist, teacher, and higher education administrator. But it was Spence’s rediscovery of classic literature 50 years after her first exposure to it at Grinnell that inspired her to help students grasp its historical relevance in today’s world. 

Last spring, Spence established the Elson-McGinty Fund in Classics. Named for two high school teachers that Spence credits with instilling in her a desire for lifelong learning, the fund expands interdisciplinary team-teaching and learning opportunities for students and faculty in the College’s Department of Classics.

It also provides summer fellowships for students who decide midstream in their college careers that knowledge of classical mythology or the speeches of Cicero will enhance their academic and career goals. “It’s exciting that students who may not have been introduced to classic literature before they came to college can still participate actively and make up some ground necessary for meaningful courses,” Spence says. 

Ella Nicolson ’18 is an example of how students are using the new classics track. Having already taken 300-level Latin, Nicolson studied Greek last summer in order to accelerate her work on a classics major while she also pursues a major in economics. 

“The support that the classics department has given me to follow my dreams and goals reaffirms that Grinnell is the right place for me,” Nicolson says. “It’s something I would not have imagined myself doing before coming here.”

The Elson-McGinty Fund in Classics is one part of a gift that also supports major expansion of Alumni Recitation Hall and Carnegie Hall into a new center for the humanities and social studies. Spence says the space will allow new teaching methods and technologies to accommodate a wider range of learning styles and accelerate students’ grasp of the classics early in their lives. 

Spence, who majored in history in addition to biology, says her Grinnell education explains why a person of science would turn her philanthropic attention to students’ understanding of Socrates or the Peloponnesian Wars. “When you have a liberal arts background, you are much more open to seeing these things as opportunities,” Spence says. 

Helping international students experience Grinnell

Growing up in India, Saumil Parikh ’99 benefited from his father’s determination and foresight. Harish Parikh worked and saved to ensure that his sons could be educated in the United States. As he researched U.S. private liberal arts colleges, Saumil Parikh says he was struck by the lack of scholarship opportunities for international students. 

Now, having created a scholarship fund to honor
his father as well as his friend and mentor Paul McCulley ’79, Parikh enjoys seeing the outcomes created by the Parikh/McCulley scholarship. It is a fully funded four-year opportunity for an international student who could not otherwise attend Grinnell.

Iulia Iordache ’15 was the first recipient of the scholarship. A native of Romania, she is currently a Grinnell College English Teaching Fellow at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

“Going out into the world has strengthened my belief that this scholarship is the most important thing that ever happened to me,” says Iordache. “Because of Saumil’s gift to Grinnell, I had more chances to explore, to be involved in campus activities as a student leader, and to discover my passion for Southeast Asia, which brought me to Thailand today.”

Iordache’s gratitude mirrors Parikh’s sentiment about Paul McCulley. McCulley helped him secure a student internship with a Wall Street bank. The ensuing professional partnership with McCulley helped forge Parikh’s ideas about giving back. 

“Paul’s relationship with me is something I regard as ideal, and something I would like to see more of between current Grinnell students and alums,” Parikh says. “It’s important for Grinnell alumni to reach back to current students and to promote their interests in whatever field it may be.”

Parikh says it is also important that the scholarship contributes to diversity by serving students from regions not otherwise well represented on campus. “The scholarship recipient this year (Rojina Sharma ’19) is a survivor of the Nepal earthquake,” Parikh says. 

Investing in the College’s evolution

Ron Sandler ’62 acquired a lifelong orientation to philanthropy when he was still a student at Grinnell. “I read two or three books by a physician named Thomas Dooley,” Sandler says. “He wrote about treating patients in Laos. The satisfaction he got out of his work came through very dramatically, and it kind of lit a fire in me.”

Also inspired by Albert Schweitzer’s efforts in underdeveloped countries, Sandler spent summer medical school internships at a mission hospital in La Paz, Bolivia, and later returned there as a Peace Corps physician. 

Sandler’s career as an orthopedic surgeon was punctuated by 24 trips to 14 different countries over a 30-year span, including five trips to a region of the Amazon with “the highest concentration of children with club-feet that I’ve ever witnessed.” 

“I was able to live the feeling that Tom Dooley conveyed in his writings,” Sandler says, “and it was always very rewarding.”

Sandler and his wife Rita have given generously to Grinnell through a series of planned gifts, including in 2015 a unitrust, which creates a stream of income that ultimately benefits the College in the future. He says he “enjoys seeing how the College has evolved” since he was a student and an athlete at Grinnell.

“I got a great education,” Sandler says. “It prepared me very well for my medical school rigors. In fact, I found medical school easier than Grinnell was, so from an academic point it was excellent.”

A College trustee since 1983, Sandler says he likes interacting with so many alumni of different backgrounds. “The dynamism that I’m witnessing now under President [Raynard S.] Kington’s tutelage is very impressive,” he adds. “The College is making some very great strides, and I think it will accelerate over the years.”

A positive habit starts early

Erik Kocher ’84 and Linda Sherry Kocher ’84 are living proof that giving back is a habit of successful people. They seized the opportunity to teach a quick course in Philanthropy 101 while accompanying daughter Audrey Kocher ’19 to New Student Orientation this fall.

“We had just bought bed risers at a sale on campus,” Linda recounts. “All I had was a 20, and the young woman at the sale said ‘It’s only 2 dollars; don’t you have 2 dollars?’ I told her I’d used up all my ones and asked who was getting the sale proceeds. She said ‘the environmental club.’ I said, well, I’m an alum, keep the 20.

“She was shocked!” Linda laughs. “But that’s the way it works!” 

The Kochers feel strongly that real-life examples help students grasp the need for philanthropy directed toward the College. “We think that culture needs to be fostered when young people first come on campus,” Linda Kocher says. 

“It’s difficult for that age group to look to the future and see it,” says Erik Kocher, “but going to Grinnell is more than just going to college. This is a relationship that can grow and give back for your entire life.”

Class fund directors since 1997, the Kochers devote a lot of time and effort each year creating handwritten, personalized thank-you notes to donors. They are strong proponents of targeted giving and enthusiastically favor both need- and merit-based financial aid with their own gifts to Grinnell. 

“Erik had tuition remission (his father taught at Coe College), and Grinnell helped me come up with additional aid so I could stay my senior year,” Linda Kocher says. “We know what it’s like to pay student loans, and we know what it’s like for other people to extend help. 

“Now we’re in a position where we can turn around and give back. And we hope at the same time that we’re modeling for others — for younger people like our own children and for other alums.”

Providing good stewardship

John Hinde ’75 knows about money, how hard it is to accumulate, and what it can accomplish. “I spent most of my career in the trust business — trust and estates, “ Hinde says. “I think giving isn’t a financial investment. It’s really more than that. It’s a gift of the sacrifices and creativity that earned the money.”

Hinde set up an estate gift to Grinnell that will fund two endowed chairs in the names of his parents, John W. Hinde and Helen Patterson Hinde. His parents inspired their son’s interest in political science and history, the areas to which his gift is currently designated. 

“Endowed chairs support the crucial work done by an outstanding faculty of world-class scholars who love to teach,” says Mike Latham, dean of the College. “They also allow us to secure the quality of that experience for generations of students to come.”

“I’m viewing this as stewardship of the family’s working lives,” Hinde says. “I don’t have heirs, and I did reasonably well in my career and was left funds from my parents and my grandparents. 

“I’m doing it as much for them as for the College and myself,” he says, “and to ensure that their efforts will continue to yield benefits going forward.”

Hinde says his Grinnell education provided the tools necessary for law school and a career in the “intellectual disciplines” of law and finance. A supporter of the 1972 McGovern campaign, he says life experience has given him a “more conservative and libertarian” viewpoint. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being to the left,” he jokes, “especially when you’re young. But I’m a little surprised that decades of life haven’t given some a greater appreciation of the danger of unintended consequences, as well as an appreciation that most risks and rewards are derived from small, marginal changes.” 

Years of doing investments and business valuations taught Hinde other hard realities, such as how even small expenditures can threaten one’s income and assets. To him, it speaks directly to why Grinnell’s endowment shouldn’t distract from the College’s need for support.

“Even students who pay the full boat are not paying the full cost of their education,” Hinde says. “If you focus on the expense of educating students as well as how difficult it is to get investment returns in any economy, you’ll understand that assets are only a small part of the equation.

“It’s stunning to realize the time and effort it took to earn those assets, and how difficult it is to prudently generate the income necessary to even maintain the current price of a Grinnell education.”