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What's in a Name?
> A Letter from the Dean
Dedicated:
> Growing Up and Giving Back
Transformation:
> Griffith Leadership Center
Campaign:
> The Michigan Difference at Public Health
Sailing to Success:
> An Atypical Business Adventure
Leadership:
> Dean's Advisory Board
A Lasting Legacy:
> A New Scholarship
Meet the 2008 SPH Alumni Board of Governers |
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Fall 2008
Growing Up and Giving Back
 Dedicated: When questions or problems related to students or curriculum arise in the SPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences, there’s one person to go to for answers, and that person is student services coordinator Sue Crawford.
“As far as I’m concerned she really creates the pulse for the whole department,” says EHS professor emeritus Peter Meier who has known Crawford since she first came to the department 30 years ago. “She’s been there the longest, she acts on every committee… I don’t know how many students she’s helped out, and not just academically. She’s always there for them.”
Crawford has worked in EHS since she began as a secretary, fresh out of Michigan State University in 1978.
“I thought this would just be a temporary job,” Crawford says. “But I kind of got immersed in the department.
The faculty I worked with allowed me to go on some research projects. And the students were my age at that time, so I became good friends with some of them.”
The connections with alumni and faculty continued through the years, as EHS expanded its mission, added an admissions office, and created the student services coordinator position for Crawford. “It’s stayed a very diverse job,” she says. “It’s never the same any day, and you get to be involved with the students and the faculty.”
“Since I arrived as the new chair in 2006, Sue has literally had to tutor and ease me into the rules and procedures surrounding teaching, the curriculum and student life—all the while juggling the demands of our many current, aspiring, and graduating students. She has done so with rigor, flair, and a great sense of humor,” says EHS Chair Howard Hu.
This year, as she reached 30 years at EHS, Crawford decided to make an unusually generous gift to her place of work. She endowed a scholarship for EHS students, becoming the first UM SPH staff person to create such a fund.
Crawford, who is single with no children, originally thought she would leave something to the university in her will. But upon reflection, she says, “I thought it’s kind of silly not to see some of this happening while you’re alive.” Then she inherited some money from an aunt, and with the ongoing UM President’s Challenge, which matches one dollar to every two dollars donated, she saw an opportunity to celebrate her 30th anniversary by endowing a fund to help the students she works with every day.
Crawford decided to establish a scholarship with her inheritance, and reached out to alumni friends and supporters for contributions. The goal was to reach an endowment of $50,000 in five years which would generate an annual $2,500 scholarship for an EHS student. In fact, so many pledges have come in that the Susan A. Crawford Scholarship endowment has already accrued more than $82,290 and is still building.
“I just think it’s fabulous that a staff person is so dedicated to the school that she would put her savings into endowing a scholarship to support future students in their efforts to gain a top-notch education in Environmental Health Sciences,” says SPH Dean Ken Warner. “I don’t know if any other staff member in any of the UM’s schools and colleges has ever done this.”
Crawford, who received an Excellence in Staff Service Award in 2002, says she had been thinking about her legacy for several years, especially since the death of her father five years ago. By endowing the scholarship now she can see it benefit others during her lifetime. “It keeps me involved with this place, where I kind of grew up,” says Crawford. “This really represents my job and my life.”
Visit www.sph.umich.edu/challenge to contribute. |
