Trying to strike a chord with Rhode Island business leaders and, perhaps, even tap into their wallets, Salve Regina University officials invited alumna Janet L. Robinson to speak at a recent luncheon about a scholarship program her company started last year.
Robinson is president and general manager of The New York Times and co-chairs a fundraising campaign for Salve. The school aims to raise $25 million for its endowment, which funds scholarships, faculty support and campus maintenance.
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The screening process for the Times’ scholarship program, which was designed to help students from low-income New York families, was enough to make “even hardened journalists weep,” Robinson told the audience of about 100 at the Rhode Island Convention Center. Some 3,000 applications poured in for four scholarships and the accompanying newspaper internships. The number of scholarships was increased to six, because of the response, she said.
One of the winners was Elizabeth Murray, a young woman from the Bronx who wanted to study psychology. Her mother died from AIDS, and at the time of the award her father was also suffering from AIDS. The girl maintained her grades and graduated in the top of her class at the Humanities Preparatory Academy in Greenwich Village – despite tragedy, poverty, neglect and homelessness. She often did her homework in building hallways, where she would also sleep, Robinson said.
The Times received a note of thanks from Murray for the scholarship, which gives her $12,000 a year for four years to attend college. Robinson read from that letter:
” It was wonderfully overwhelming to see just how much each one of you were so passionately involved in ensuring that these awards were given where they were needed most. I’m not sure I will ever be able to convey how deeply you’ve touched me.”
Murray wrote she had a strong emotional reaction after reading an article announcing the awards: ” before I could even realize why, tears rolled out of my eyes for what must have been the first time since my mother died. For once, there was something tangible for all of my hard work.”
Since February, when the story profiling the six scholarship winners appeared, the newspaper has received about $200,000 in additional, unexpected donations, Robinson added. That money will allow them to provide college funds for another 15 finalists, she said.
Robinson graduated from Salve in 1972, then spent 11 years teaching in Massachusetts’ public schools. She joined the Times’ staff in 1983 and was appointed president in 1996.
“I believe from 11 years of personal experience, that when involved teachers are provided with the tools and the proper environment, they can truly make a difference in the lives of many and in the world in which we live,” Robinson said.
“I speak to you today, not as a school teacher, but as a business person who has come to see the importance of quality education even more clearly from a business point of view.”
The scholarship program is not the Times’ only effort to support education.
The New York Times Company Foundation gave $1.6 million to more than 600 schools in the past year, according to Robinson. Last fall the company also launched The Learning Network, a Web site that offers teachers and parents of 6th through 12th graders ways to link classroom learning with world events. It provides stories about subjects such as the Kosovo crisis and the ethics of cloning, along with suggested lesson plans.
And about three decades ago, the Times created a program called Newspapers in Education, which was designed to encourage students to read newspapers and is now copied by publications around the country.
So far the Learning Network has received positive reviews, particularly from teachers in schools affected by budget constraints, Robinson said.
And, she pointed out, the Times is not alone in its support of education.
For instance, Robert Goizueta, Coca-Cola’s late chairman and chief executive officer left $20 million to Emory University’s Business School; Peter Lynch of Fidelity Investments donated $10 million to Boston College this year; and a Pennsylvania businessman gave $21 million to the University of Connecticut.
“My hope is that some of the examples I have cited today may serve to prompt you to examine the importance of corporate support of education, for education support should be realistically viewed as an enlightened business investment. Business has a very specific, constant, need for trained minds, and those can only come from a strong education base,” Robinson said.
