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The Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation has made a gift of $750,000 to Rollins with the purpose of funding the College’s freshwater curricular and research initiative.

The grant builds on the foundation’s support of environmental studies faculty members and students at the Genius Preserve in Winter Park as well as on the work of other faculty and students using other local freshwater resources as their laboratories. Rollins will be able to fund the design, piloting, and implementation of field studies, courses, community service programs, and public research that capitalize on the College’s proximity to these outstanding natural resources, both to advance the education of Rollins students and offer service to the Central Florida community.

“It is a pleasure to support this project,” says Harold A. Ward III ’86H, who serves as the foundation’s chairman and as an honorary trustee of the College.

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

The foundation’s president, Randy Rush, says that the McKeans recognized the tremendous importance of Central Florida’s freshwater natural resources, which made it especially appealing for the current trustees of the Genius Foundation to support this initiative.

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