Toward the end of the Spring 2020 semester, the Educational Psychology department learned it would be receiving a new, major gift from Beatrice Wolf Perry of Silver Spring, Maryland. By working with the College's Office of Advancement, Mrs. Perry has established two funds to support students in Educational Psychology. The first is the Beatrice Wolf Perry Fund for Student Travel. This fund will generate travel support for graduate students to attend conferences and present their research.
Second, Mrs. Perry established a Graduate Scholarship in Educational Psychology. This endowment directly supports students, intending to help relieve student debt while scholars pursue their degree programs and research.
Mrs. Perry was born in 1931 in Washington, D.C. and has lived in Silver Spring, Maryland for the past 60 years. Always devoted to her family (Mrs. Perry even worked for her father in the family business, a bicycle- and bicycle-parts-supply company) she now enjoys retirement by spending time with her son and his family nearby and staying connected to her daughters and their families who live far away. Despite never having earned a college degree, Mrs. Perry appreciates what education has done to improve the lives of her children and grandchildren, which inspired her to direct her charitable donation to support the graduate students in the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at Illinois.
We are immensely grateful for Mrs. Perry's incredible generosity and her vision for supporting future leaders within the field of educational psychology. Thanks to her financial support, our graduate students will be able to focus their energy on impacting the world through research, teaching, and service.