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JEFF KOSMACHER
Director of Media Relations & Public Affairs
(845) 437-7404
jekosmacher@vassar.edu
Press Contact
Jeff Kosmacher
Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs
(845) 437-7404
jekosmacher@vassar.edu
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$4 million grant for faculty support honors Vassar alumna and former college trustee Anne McNiff Tatlock, a Poughkeepsie native.
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY – Vassar College will receive a grant of $4 million for faculty support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in honor of Anne McNiff Tatlock, a 1961 Vassar graduate and former trustee of the college, on the occasion of her retirement as chair of the Mellon Foundation’s Board of Trustees. The grant will create two new endowed funds at Vassar: The Anne McNiff Tatlock '61 Endowment for Strategic Faculty Support, and The Anne McNiff Tatlock '61 Chair in Multidisciplinary Studies.“This is a wonderful tribute to an extraordinary alumna who has shown, time and again, a deep dedication to Vassar and to the liberal arts education we offer,” said Vassar president Catharine Hill. “We are extremely grateful to Anne and to Mellon for this generous gift, which honors the commitments to faculty vitality and renewal that have been hallmarks of Anne’s leadership at the Mellon Foundation.”
Tatlock, who shares her hometown of Poughkeepsie with Vassar, has been a trailblazer for women in the world of investment and finance. After 22 years at Smith Barney, she joined Fiduciary Trust International in 1984, becoming its president in 1994, chief executive officer in 1999, and chairwoman in 2000. And facing a personal challenge she never could have anticipated, Tatlock also provided Fiduciary Trust resolute and compassionate leadership through the dark days following September 11, 2001, when the firm lost nearly 90 employees at its World Trade Center offices.
The new Anne McNiff Tatlock '61 Chair will be the first endowed position at Vassar dedicated to multidisciplinary studies, an academic area in which the college has long been a pioneer. Some of Vassar’s thirteen current multidisciplinary degree programs date back more than 40 years, ranging from Africana Studies to Science, Technology and Society.
The college's Anne McNiff Tatlock '61 Endowment for Strategic Faculty Support will enable the Dean of the Faculty to supplement the college’s established faculty development efforts in a variety of ways. For example, the endowment may supplement outside funding for faculty research, or provide timely support for professors whose research or creative work is heading in new directions.
Anne Tatlock served as a Vassar trustee for 12 years beginning in 1994, and chaired the college’s Investments Committee from 1998 to 2006. She joined the Mellon Foundation board in 1995 and has served as its chair since 2003. Her philanthropic commitments also include current service as a trustee for such diverse organizations as American Ballet Theatre, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Mayo Clinic, and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.
“Serving with Anne on the Vassar board was a pleasure and a privilege,” said William A. Plapinger, current chair of the Vassar Board of Trustees. “Among the many ways Anne has enhanced Vassar are her vital leadership of the Investments Committee during a turbulent time, and her always wise counsel in the deliberations of the board. Vassar is a much better place because of Anne Tatlock.”
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861.
Posted by Office of Communications Friday, May 4, 2012
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