This past spring, we established the Ruth Wilmot and Christie Herbert Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship to honor the heart of what has made LC meaningful to us.
We both came to this area by way of a graduate program and affiliation with the School for International Training, and then to LC. Our prior study abroad/international experiences, both as participants and leaders, were transformative in shaping our lives. LC is about the power of transformation. Study abroad amplifies, strengthens, and refines that process.
If much of what our students struggle with is conforming to a cultural norm of what constitutes being neurotypical, study abroad can give them a vivid illustration of how, in another culture, their challenge might be a strength.
Study abroad at its best can provide a permanent recalibration of our navigational compass. We are simply one culture doing things in our particular way, and the base trend of humans to create an “other” or alien or immigrant—the xenophobic impulse behind not being able to see those different from us as humans—is not really tenable when you’ve lived in and experienced the people of another culture.
This $50,000 endowment also celebrates our long and wonderful friendship. Our three trips leading LC students to Japan were a highlight of our decades at the College.
The point of this endowment is to give LC students who wouldn’t otherwise have the means to study abroad the chance to do so, and to hope that the experience plants a seed that germinates and spreads its fruit in positive and lasting ways.
— Ruth Wilmot and Christie Herbert
To make a donation to the Ruth Wilmot and Christie Herbert Study Abroad Scholarship, use the form below.