When you create or give to an endowed scholarship fund, you are making a permanent investment in Kenyon and its future students. Endowed scholarships are a wonderful way to leave a lasting legacy while supporting your personal philanthropic goals and the priorities of the College. Whereas every dollar of annual fund scholarship is typically awarded to a deserving student that budget year, endowed funds are invested as part of the College’s overall endowment and the average 4.5% return is spent. Growing the size of Kenyon’s endowment will help the College become less tuition-dependent and allow more talented students to be admitted regardless of need. To learn more about creating or giving to an endowed fund, please contact Sarah Tancredi, director of major gifts.

Many endowed funds have been created during the Our Path Forward campaign and continue to welcome support.

President’s Fund

An endowed scholarship for the top-tier of qualified students, regardless of their ability to pay. Awards from the President’s Fund will be directed to underrepresented students whose family income is in the bottom 60 percent of family incomes across the U.S., enhancing Kenyon’s economic diversity as well as our racial and ethnic diversity.

With generous leadership from former board chair Barry F. Schwartz ’70, H’15, Kenyon seeks $20 million to endow the President’s Fund for academic excellence and diversity to expand Kenyon’s annual financial aid budget, providing vital need-based aid year after year. Matching funds are available for gifts to this endowment. Contact Sarah Tancredi for more information. 

To remain competitive, we must be an institution that is not only attractive but accessible to students from diverse backgrounds, including a range of socioeconomic groups. This diversity strengthens the learning environment by creating a campus and classroom environment where ideas are asserted, contested and challenged from different perspectives. 

William E. Lowry Jr. Endowed Scholarship

William E. Lowry Jr. ’56 H’99 captained the football, basketball and baseball teams, and served as student body president as just the fifth Black graduate of Kenyon. He was also the first Black man nationally inducted into Beta Theta Pi.

Created with a lead gift from Joseph E. Lipscomb ’87, who served with Bill on the Board of Trustees, the purpose of the scholarship is to further the recruitment and retention of domestic students of color, recognizing the value diversity brings to learning and each student’s experience. It will provide scholarship support to students who demonstrate financial need, with a preference for students from underrepresented groups, first-generation students, or Pell-eligible students. 

Kenyon Women’s Endowed Scholarship

Created in 2019 with a lead gift from Nina Freedman ’77 H’92, a member of the Board of Trustees, to honor the 50th anniversary of women coming to Kenyon, this need-based scholarship will be given each year to a deserving student who identifies as female. 

This scholarship helped kick off a new Women & Philanthropy initiative at the College, designed to elevate and celebrate women’s giving. To learn more, contact Nicole Pagano-Percy

Pope Memorial Scholarship

Established in memory of Ruben E. “Ed” Pope ’70, a founding member of the Black Student Union, by his classmates and friends to honor Ed’s love for Cleveland’s East Side and his commitment to increasing the number of inner city students enrolled at the College. The Fund income provides scholarship support to students who demonstrate financial need, with preference given to students from urban Ohio public schools.