{"id":33813,"date":"2011-04-28T08:07:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T12:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=33813"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:36:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:36:31","slug":"the-perfect-gift-%e2%80%93-a-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/04\/the-perfect-gift-%e2%80%93-a-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Gift \u2013 A Named Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Mary<\/a>
Mary Ellen Brigham, UConn alumna and parent. Photo provided by UConn Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Neil T. Brigham was wondering what to get his wife, Mary Ellen \u201981 CLAS, \u201988, this past Christmas, he came up empty. Then he accompanied her to a UConn women\u2019s basketball game and alumni event in Atlanta, where he found the perfect gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt dawned on him that one of the most important things to me was UConn,\u201d says Mary Ellen Brigham, who is active in the UConn Alumni Association chapter in Atlanta. \u201cOver the course of the event, he got the idea of doing a scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brigham\u2019s three children, all strong students, have been challenged with learning disabilities, throwing Brigham into the position of advocate early on. When her eldest, Kathryn, who has dyslexia, chose to attend UConn, Brigham and her daughter immediately contacted the Center for Students with Disabilities<\/a>. \u201cThey were wonderful from the start,\u201d Brigham says. \u201cThey were knowledgeable and knew what approach was right for her. She hit it off so well with the center that for two years she actually worked for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Brighams created the Mary Ellen Brigham Endowment Fund for students in the Center for Students with Disabilities. A match from Neil Brigham\u2019s company, KPMG LLP, will help build the endowment more quickly.<\/p>\n

For students with disabilities, UConn\u2019s Center for Students with Disabilities is a featured attraction, and an assurance that their specific needs will be understood and accommodated. Each one of the Brigham children is an honors student, and all are succeeding in their academic goals. In Kathryn\u2019s case, that meant graduating cum laude with dual degrees in animal science from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Spanish from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She is now a second-year Ph.D. student in chronic disease epidemiology at Yale.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are coming from all over New England to UConn because the University has one of the best disabilities services departments in the country,\u201d Brigham says. \u201cFor Katie, the center provided the needed support to be successful in a large university.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CampaignThe scholarship is another step for Brigham in her efforts to support her alma mater. Besides her involvement with the Atlanta alumni chapter and her role as a UConn parent, she also taught business courses at UConn some years ago. She has been a part of the University for decades, and the scholarship was a fitting symbol of her continuing commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my present at Christmastime,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it meant far more to me than a typical present. I want people to know it\u2019s easier than they think to put together a scholarship. It can be built over time, and they can still feel good about it because they can anticipate that it will make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make a gift to the Center for Students with Disabilities, please\u00a0contact the Foundation’s development staff<\/a> for more information.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A scholarship fund for students with disabilities was the perfect gift for a UConn parent and alum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-33813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 00:58:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33813"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36423,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813\/revisions\/36423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33813"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=33813"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}