Olin alumni meet Wood Scholarship Challenge, raise $400,000

Alison Berger, Olin’s senior associate director for alumni engagement and stewardship, wrote this post for the Olin Blog.

We all know the impact a scholarship can have on a student: It’s life changing. 

Last fall, Howard Wood, and his wife, Marilyn, offered a challenge to Olin supporters. They generously committed to match all new and increased gifts and multi-year pledge payments for undergraduate and graduate scholarships—up to a total of $400,000—through June 30, 2021. 

We are happy to report that the Wood Scholarship Challenge was met! In fact, this challenge inspired seven new annual scholarships to be established. It inspired 569 Olin alumni to contribute toward scholarships and raised over $100,000 toward Olin scholarships from new donors. 

Howard Wood, longtime friend and champion of Olin, knows just how impactful a scholarship can be. He, too, received a scholarship that afforded him the opportunity to attend Olin in 1957. Without his scholarship, he would never have been able to attend, he has said, because his parents, both schoolteachers, did not have the financial means to support his education.

Howard, BSBA ’61, has paid it forward over the years. In 1998, he established the Wood Leadership Fellows Program, which evolved into the Wood Scholars Program in 2016. Wood Scholars receive significant awards to attend Olin each year. 

A huge thank you to the generosity of the Woods, true champions of our students. Like so many Olin alumni and friends, they truly understand that scholarships give more students the opportunity to attend Washington University and become the innovative, ethical and collaborative business leaders of tomorrow.