alumni news

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Giving in the family spirit

Something about sandals and sneakers, combined with the great expectations of Commencement, always makes the senior-family gift ceremony an easy, companionable, and joyous event. This year, graduating seniors and their families pulled up lawn chairs on the deck outside Burgess Café, propped their feet on the stone ledge, and crowded the wide stairway to watch the festivities on the patio below, where bricks inscribed with students’ names had been freshly installed in honor of their families’ gifts to Skidmore.

Welcoming remarks were made by Brooks and Angela Chamberlin, parents of Brooks ’09 and Victoria ’05 (who, through their father, are the grandchildren of Frances Foley Chamberlin ’36). As key organizers of the senior-family project, they thanked the “dedicated, focused, and creative” parent volunteers and donors for their steadfastness even in tough economic times. The effort raised more than $365,000 from a record-breaking 71 percent of the seniors’ families.

President Philip Glotzbach reported that part of the gift is funding a geo­thermal project that will soon ease Skidmore’s utility bills and carbon footprint by heating and cooling Bernhard Theater, Saisselin Art Building, and Filene Music Building. The rest of the gift went into the annual fund, primarily for student scholarship aid. Glotzbach offered his own thanks, a flurry of hugs and snapshots followed, and the bonhomie lingered in the sun for a good long while. —SR