Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation Gives $500,000 Toward Student-Faculty Scholarship

The Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation has made a $500,000 commitment to augment its endowment supporting Rollins’ Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program.

This is the latest in a series of grants the Winter Park-based foundation has made to the endowment since establishing it at Rollins in 2017.

“We are pleased to support Rollins’ Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program,” says Harold A. Ward III ’86H, chairman of the Genius Foundation and longtime Rollins trustee. “With this new commitment, more students and professors will have the ability to work together to advance scholarly work.”

The Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in high-level scholarly research and scholarship that is typically available only at the graduate-school level. Since its inception in 1999, this program has produced powerful partnerships across nearly every department, resulting in more than 100 publications, performances, and books in topics ranging from African art to X-ray astrophysics.

The Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation was established in 1959 by Hugh F. McKean ’30 ’72H and his wife, Jeannette Genius McKean ’62H, in honor of Jeannette’s mother, Elizabeth Morse Genius. Hugh served from 1950 to 1969 as the 10th president of Rollins.

Gifts that support Rollins’ unique academic model—which includes initiatives like the Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program—help prepare our students to take their next steps into the world better equipped to confront challenges and glean opportunities.