By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
Nancy Logan may have graduated from Baylor over 60 years ago, but her connection to the university remains as strong as ever.
Logan, who is a Waco local, is part of the vast network of alumni-turned-donors who give back to Baylor in the form of scholarships or funds for departments.
While in high school, she said she realized Baylor would be the best fit for her higher education needs. She graduated from the university in 1962 with a major in education and English.
“I only applied to Baylor,” Logan said. “I really don’t think when I was in high school that I was ready to go away from home, so I applied to Baylor, and I started in the summer of 1959 after I graduated from Waco High.”
Logan said Baylor surrounded her with good role models and allowed her to grow as a person.
“Baylor was a good, Christian and, at that time, low-key university in the scope of life in 1962,” Logan said. “It was a comfortable place. Since I grew up in Waco, I knew a lot of the teachers. I knew administrators. I was familiar with the town.”
Logan and her husband, Fred, started their first scholarship around 1995. It allowed them to donate around $50,000 to the School of Music over time.
“Fred had just retired from Dow Chemical, and Dow Chemical Fund would match up to $5,000 a year to any of many universities if you gave something for educational purposes,” Logan said. “So we decided to begin a scholarship at Baylor, and it was a multiple-year contract.”
The company fund allowed the couple to give back to the university even more. Logan said she encourages other potential donors to look into the opportunity.
“The next three scholarships we did, we just did with our funds,” Logan said. “But it is nice … if you happen to get a job with a company that matches gifts to universities. It’s a good way to begin giving gifts there.”
Toby Barnett, associate vice president and campaign director for the Office of Advancement, said there are different opportunities for donors, such as donating to existing funds or creating endowment scholarships — both of which Logan has done.
“It is extremely impactful, and one of the ways that our donors really help to strengthen our institution is by giving to endowed scholarship funds,” Barnett said. “One of our ongoing and really important pieces of work is to grow our endowment to ensure that the university has permanent resources to be able to support students or research or faculty in a meaningful way.”
Over the years, Logan and her husband have donated to a variety of departments.
“We have a lot of connections with Baylor,” Logan said. “Through the years, as we would learn of a new … department, it just became natural to give to whatever need that particular department had.“
Logan has also served on the advisory board for the library system, which led to her most recent scholarship.
“The last scholarship we did, we made it applicable to the libraries to have scholarship proceeds to find an internship in the library system somewhere,” Logan said. “That’s another place I enjoy giving a gift.”
Logan said she and her husband were inspired to become donors for Baylor because of their families, who gave back to the university before them.
“Both of our families encouraged us to be a part of the community that you live in and to help others that were less fortunate than we were,” Logan said. “We were both fortunate in that we were encouraged as children to be giving, whether it was money or our time, to some entity, wherever you’re living.”
