Personal Stories

Williams' groundbreaking All-Grant financial aid model has removed loans and required work-study from student aid packages, allowing all students to focus on learning, growth, and exploration. Through this matching initiative, the Class of 1970 and the college are partners in creating new opportunities and leveling the playing field for all students, ensuring that financial circumstances never stand in the way of a transformative Williams education.

The 25th Reunion is a defining moment for the Class of 2000, not just to reconnect, but to give back in a meaningful way, ensuring that Williams students continue to thrive, regardless of financial circumstance.

Having been at Williams as both a student and an administrator, I’ve witnessed so many lives being transformed, particularly those for whom the value added is the highest. I’ve also witnessed the college stepping up to embrace true affordability, and I’m happy and proud to support its efforts in whatever way I can.

By supporting financial aid, Tony hopes his gift will inspire other alumni to do the same. “Legacy, to me, means leaving a lasting impression that benefits future students at Williams,” he says.

John Hyde embodies the Teach It Forward Campaign’s focus on great teaching. By making initial fellowship gifts today and then using his future estate to fully fund it with a bequest, he is able to see his vision in action and create an endowed fund that will last in perpetuity.

Massachusetts Professor of Humanities Susan Dunn has taught at Williams since the early 1970s. When planning her estate and the impact she would like it to have at Williams, Susan worked with the Williams Gift Planning team to create an endowed professorship to honor and continue the work to which she and Jim devoted their lives.

Geoff Connor ’68, P’02 said, “My 50th reunion presented the perfect opportunity to make a once-in-a-lifetime, truly meaningful gift to Williams—a chance to see that the next generation is educated, not just in a trade, but in all aspects of life. I chose a deferred charitable gift annuity because I viewed it as a win-win."

TO BENEFIT WILLIAMS AND ITS ALUMNI and friends in the United Kingdom, Williams has established the Williams College Foundation (UK) Limited, a private limited company approved by charitable tax authorities in the UK and US.

FOR BILL JAUME ’77 the path to Williams went across a 90 mile strip of the Atlantic Ocean. Born in Cuba to a middle class family, Bill’s mother and father sent him to the U.S. in 1962 when he was only eight as part of Operation Pedro Pan.

Elizabeth Bluhm, Class of ’95 Gift Planning Chair, shares what inspired her to make a legacy gift to Williams when she was just starting out in her career as a physician and what that gift will achieve.

Retirement from his position as head of Applewild School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, prompted Chris Williamson ’70 and his wife Peggy, to consider ways in which they could make a substantial gift in honor of Chris’s upcoming 50th Reunion while also supplementing their retirement income.

​Frederick Ferris Thompson is well known at Williams for his generous philanthropy. His first gift was the clock tower on Lasell Gymnasium in 1886—the same year he became a Trustee and was granted an honorary degree from Williams, although he never finished his studies.

Since his first day as a volunteer for the Alumni Fund telethon more than 46 years ago Gay Mayer’s mantra for giving to his alma mater has been “Plan”.

For Jim Blume, giving to Williams is a matter of the heart. “In general it’s hard for me to get excited about supporting an institution of any kind, but Williams is an amazing collection of people who’ve significantly enriched my life.”

Grace Hampel’s first job out of college, in 1947, was as a stenographer and secretary to President Phinney Baxter III, Class of 1914. It was, she said, “a great beginning for me.”

Frieda’s affection for Williams began as a child when she joined her parents and her father Stuart’s Class of 1945 pals at annual Amherst game tailgating parties.

Let us count the ways: Father of Kathy Ryan-Gidman ’90 and Jim ’92, Bill has served as president of the Executive Committee of the Society of Alumni, class treasurer, six stints as class secretary.

Professor S. Lane Faison Jr. ’29 (1907-2006) was a Williams legend and a national treasure. Among the most influential art educators of the 20th century, he taught several generations of America’s leading museum directors, curators and scholars.

What’s been most meaningful for me has been the relationships that I’ve developed with Williams people—classmates and professors from my time on campus, of course, but also fellow alumni that I’ve gotten to know through my regional association.

“With our 25th Reunion approaching,we thought long and hard about how to show our support for Williams...."

Fresh from Williams, John Raynolds ’51 served in the KoreanWar as a diver in the Navy Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) that was the first to develop a system for delivering UDT swimmers from a fast-moving helicopter—an operation that led to the development of the famous U.S. Navy SEALs.

“The guiding principal of both of our families has been the importance of education to the development of the individual and the institutions of the world..."

Nancy and Ted Cobden, both widowed after long marriages, delighted their many Williams friends when they were married in 2005. Nancy’s first husband, Robinson D. Wright, had been Ted’s classmate and fraternity brother.

Sally Love H’58 established a Williams Charitable Gift Annuity to support the Class of 1958 Scholarships. Why the scholarship gift? “Because my late husband Jack was a Tyng Scholar.

The recipient of a Tyng Scholarship, which provided a great incentive for him to come to Williams, Rhett majored in English and history and was editor of the Record.