Photo by Michael Tallman, 2019.
"When I rejoined my family after receiving an honorary doctorate degree from UVM a few years ago, my granddaughter informed me that she won the bet they had on when I would start to cry during the ceremony. ‘Grandpa,’ she asked, ‘why were you crying?’ I replied, ‘Baby, when they read the citation, I started thinking of my mother who worked three jobs so I could go to college.’ My granddaughter said that was worth a good cry. The education I received at UVM has made a tremendous difference in my life. With the cost of a college education today, there is no way a mother can mop enough floors or clean enough toilets to do for their child what my mother did for me."
FRANK BOLDEN ’63
Frank majored in English and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from UVM in 2018. He and his wife Penny are longtime leaders in the UVM community. They established the Bolden Family Scholarship to help recruit and retain exceptional students of color to the College of Arts and Sciences. The Ira Allen Society recognizes people like the Boldens for being among the University of Vermont’s most generous donors.
Photo by Rowan Elleman '16, 2021.
"When my father’s family, Maria and Captain Georg von Trapp and nine children, arrived in the U.S. in 1938, many people offered them assistance in the form of lodging, meals, or transportation. Supporting UVM scholarships is my way of offering both assistance and encouragement to students pursuing their own journeys in higher education."
