Our RAMily grows stronger every year
For more than 60 years, we’ve been preparing future teachers, counselors and leaders. Today, our alums are driving positive changes from classrooms to policy venues - and everything in-between. Your UNCommon impact starts here in the heart of Virginia and extends across the country and around the globe.
Whether you earned your diploma last year or many decades earlier, you’re important members of our RAMily - and we’re excited by how you stay connected. You return to campus as guest lecturers and adjunct professors, mentor current students, and broaden learning experiences by creating internships and other real-world opportunities at every degree level. We even count several of you as faculty members.
Let’s keep the conversation going
- Say a good word about VCU Education and help recruit new students here.
- Volunteer to help the School of Education - let us know your interests.
- Share your feedback - we want to know.
- Attend VCU Education events; you’ll find there’s something for each of you.
- Support scholarships, endowment funds and research for the next generation of VCU-educated leaders.
Download the VCU Alumni app to stay in touch at your fingertips.
Giving back to keep our school moving forward
Your gift is an investment in people — our students, faculty and the community we serve today and in the future. Consider sharing what you feel is a meaningful gift, and we promise we will use your generosity in meaningful ways … and we will share that impact with you.
There’s a system and a group of people in place at VCU that I feel I can trust. I know that my gift will be distributed quickly and go to those that need it most.
How can you support your school?
Make an immediate impact by giving to the School of Education Annual Fund and help find solutions to today’s challenges, particularly as state budget dollars decrease. Your Annual Fund gift supports our greatest needs: We can seize opportunities and act on innovative ideas, award and recognize students with scholarships, and host guest presenters and panel discussions. All of that contributes to our school’s continued national prominence.
When you make a gift to any fund over $1,000 in our fiscal year, which runs from July 1-June 30, you are welcomed into the Dean’s Circle. We recognize these donors with invitations to special school and university events. You’ll also receive updates on school initiatives and milestones, which helps you see firsthand the impact of your dollars.
Those considering larger gifts often include the School of Education in their estate plans. Revocable gifts made through your will or living trust allow you to remain in control of your assets, providing flexibility to update your bequest and making charitable giving attractive.
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Gifts that anyone can make |
Gifts that provide income |
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Wills and bequests Donor advised funds (DAF) Gifts of stock or securities Gifts of life insurance Gifts of real estate Gifts of personal property |
Charitable gift annuities Deferred gift annuities Charitable remainder trusts Charitable remainder unitrusts |
For assistance in how to define and designate these gifts in your will or to document an existing gift, contact Ed Kardos, egkardos@vcu.edu.
Your gifts can help us attract the best students and support their academic journeys. In recent years, our students have benefited from a boost in scholarship dollars. Today, 10% of our students receive private scholarship funds.
We collaborate with you to establish a fund that aligns your goals with school needs, as you can see from our varied existing scholarships. We also celebrate your support through special events where donors get to meet the student recipients. In general, you can give scholarship gifts in three ways:
- Endowed Funds: New, named endowed funds start with a commitment of $50,000 or greater and can be paid over five years. That gift is invested, and recipients receive scholarships based on an annual distribution. An endowed scholarship may be named by the donor, pending approval by the VCU Board of Visitors. Endowed scholarships grow and last in perpetuity.
- You may decide to establish an endowment driven by you, as you invest in initiatives, programs and areas that are most important to you. Previous gifts have established funds for specific research activities, community service projects, faculty enrichment and departments and programs within an area of the school.
- General Scholarship Fund: You can give at any level at any time to this relatively new fund. We award scholarships as the fund grows - and the more it grows, the more students we can support.
To support scholarship giving, contact Ed Kardos, egkardos@vcu.edu.
Endowed gifts deepen our faculty research and bring dedicated expertise to campus, in part through specially funded lectureships. These types of gifts also help to introduce new programs and initiatives.
Endowed professorships
Current endowed faculty professorships are:
- Established in 2010 through a generous gift from Dr. Lou and Ruth Harris, the Ruth Harris Professorship in Dyslexia Studies supports faculty and doctoral student research in the field of dyslexia education. The professorship honors Ruth Harris, a pioneer in dyslexia treatment of dyslexia, who dedicated her life to helping others with learning disabilities after her third-grade son exhibited persistent trouble with reading, writing and spelling.
- The Anna Lou Schaberg Professorship of Practice in Education was created in 2022 to concentrate on the theory and implementation of pedagogical practices that can transform a classroom, a school and a child’s education. It was established by the Bob and Anna Lou Schaberg Fund. A Richmond Public Schools educator for nearly thirty years, Anna Lou Schaberg earned her psychology degree from the former Richmond Professional Institute and a master’s degree in education from VCU.
- The Anna Lou and Bob Schaberg Chair of Practice supports our school’s mission of meeting the urgent need for highly trained teachers in Virginia. It was created in 2024 with another generous gift from the Schaberg Fund.
To provide endowed gifts, contact Ed Kardos, egkardos@vcu.edu.