First-Ever Endowed Professorship with Your Help
“Don’t ever disappoint me and never dream small.” Those are the words I’ve said on the first day of class to my students for many years. Now, I find myself reflecting on what I want to say to the greater Mount Community as I wrap up my 40th year of teaching. I came here at 29 years old, and I made a life here. I taught over 10,000 students and watched many of them follow my initial words of advice, becoming doctors, scientists, entomologists, physical therapists, taxonomists, and teachers. I recognize the lessons I have taught them have shaped their communities, and so my legacy lives on in them, just as the professors who helped me achieve my dream live on in me.
As a thank you for my many years of teaching, the University has offered me $1,000 towards my retirement party. But why have a retirement party when I am not “leaving” this place? I’m a part of the Mount as much as it is a part of me. Therefore, I let the University know that I would prefer the $1,000 be invested towards a new scholarship.
Then, I was reminded of my own advice: Never dream small.
The Mount lacks an endowed professorship. An endowment would allow the Mount to fund in perpetuity a paid faculty professorship in the Biology Department by drawing on the interest of the raised funds. To endow a professorship, we would need to raise $1 million. I believe in dreaming big and I want this to happen.
You haven’t disappointed me yet, so will you help me realize my dream of endowing a professorship? Alone, we are a single cicada, but together, we can be a large emergence!
Let’s Climb Higher together,
Gene Kritsky, Ph.D.