Anniversary Anniversary - Wellesley College

In 1918, Abbie L. Paige (1896) became president. In her tenure of over twenty
years she was to become truly the “builder” of Students’ Aid, for she pioneered a
type of fi nancial aid program which has since been adopted in nearly all private
colleges. To supplement outright gifts and to stretch the resources of the Society
she created the Revolving Loan Fund, insisting that students who received fi nancial
aid should assume some responsibility for their education by repaying after
graduation a small part of their grants. Until she retired from the Presidency
in 1940 her “life was Wellesley College, the undergraduates she helped and the
multitude of her contemporaries who had responded with gifts and bequests
to her appeals.” Equally devoted and faithful through all this time and years
longer, was the Treasurer Ruby Willis (1909), known and loved by generations
of grateful students.
After the completion in 1950 of the College’s 75th Anniversary Fund and with
the establishment of the Development Fund, some changes took place. Clubs
and Classes (with some notable exceptions) laid less emphasis on Students’
Aid Life Memberships and Memorials for deceased members, and most of the
money raised for scholarship purposes was sent directly to the College. Hence
today there is less familiarity with the Students’ Aid Society among younger
alumnae, unless
as undergraduates
they had need of
its services. Our
Bulletin and Annual
Meeting are
now our principal
media for reaching
the alumnae
body.
An upward step in
the annals of the
Society was taken
during the Presidency
of Mildred 1933 Hoop Rolling
Hunter Brown
(1915). The Directors,
with far-sighted planning, withdrew most of the Permanent Funds from
savings banks and placed them in the hands of the old conservative Boston Trust
Company for sound investment.
continued on page 8
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