Helen Ginsberg Forman, a special education teacher and a 1934 graduate of the Rhode Island College of Education, now Rhode Island College, has left $5.1 million to the college.
Forman died Aug. 14, 2005, at the age of 93. Her bequest is the largest single gift to a Rhode Island public institution of higher learning by an individual, RIC said in its Friday news release.
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RIC said it would acknowledge Forman’s generosity with a special tribute Saturday, Nov. 4, in the college’s Nazarian Center, where a theater was named in her honor in 2000. The event will begin at 6 p.m., with a red-carpet reception, followed by a silent auction and an 8 o’clock performance of “Yellowman,” by Dael Orlandersmith, presented in partnership with the Providence Black Repertory Company.
“This is an extraordinary gift, not just for the college, but as a symbol of the growing awareness of how important private giving is to our state institutions,” said Marguerite Brown, executive director of the RIC Foundation.
“I was working at URI in 1991, when the university received its first $1 million gift – an insurance policy donated by Eleanor Carlson to endow the women’s studies program,” she recalled. “The announcement of that first seven-figure gift to a public institution was practically a state holiday. Today, 15 years later, we reach yet another milestone in private giving to Rhode Island’s public institutions.”
A patron of the arts, Forman wished that the money be used to endow scholarships for students of music, theater and dance, and special education. She designated a portion of her bequest to support an endowment for the James P. Adams Library and the President’s Music Series.
Helen Forman was a middle-class woman with no inherited wealth, Brown said. But she and her husband, Sylvan Forman, a railway and postal worker, invested wisely in the stock market. They resided in a simple home on Tyndall Avenue in Providence, traveled occasionally, but generally lived a modest lifestyle.
“When Helen was asked why she didn’t buy this or that, she’d always reply, ‘I’d rather leave it to a scholarship,’ ” Brown recalled.
Her love of teaching and commitment to her students were her life’s blood. She believed in the power of education for all students not just those with special needs. Throughout her career, she taught every grade from kindergarten through high school in the Providence and Warwick school systems.
She was also a constant volunteer for the college, assisting in fundraising efforts and serving as a cooperating teacher for students preparing to become teachers.
In 1994, she made her first large gift to the college: $250,000, to restore one of the buildings on RIC’s east campus. The building, named in memory of her husband, now houses the admissions office and several departments in the division of academic affairs.
A large stone construction with sprawling lawns, the Forman Building was once the superintendent’s residence at the R.I. State Home and School for Children, the former state orphanage whose grounds are now RIC’s east campus.
“I’m proud to be an alumna of a great college, and I cherish all the days I’ve been associated with Rhode Island College,” Helen Forman said at the building’s dedication.
RIC’s Alumna of Year in 1989, she received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the college in 1999.
