An impactful holiday

This holiday season, Jennifer Lundgren Lewis-David ’94 surprised her mother, Gretchen Lundgren Lewis ’68, with a mother-daughter scholarship in honor of their respective time at Goucher. When Gretchen opened her present to see their family legacy unwrapped, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Even before your scholarship, you and your mother were longtime annual supporters and Goucher Society members. What drove you to give back to Goucher?

My mother always talked about her time at Goucher with great fondness—the life lessons, friendships formed, awareness of a broader world, and, of course, meeting my father (Sandy Lewis, Johns Hopkins University Class of ’68). She sneakily suggested a “practice college interview” at Goucher when I was looking at colleges and lo and behold I fell in love with the school. My years at Goucher were formative: instilling and expanding a lifelong love of learning and intellectual curiosity, as well as a passion to develop potential and engage in the community, and establishing some of the most impactful friendships in my life. It was important to me to give back to Goucher in gratitude and to “pay it forward” in hopes that others would also be equally benefited by their time at the college.

What inspired you to take the next step and create an endowed scholarship?

I was a scholarship recipient during my four years and was also awarded a couple of named fellowships/prizes at graduation. Those were very meaningful—both financially and otherwise—and I hoped to be able to do something vaguely in the future to establish a scholarship as well. My mother had been discussing establishing a scholarship at my father’s alma mater in his memory and that started me thinking about what I could do to honor my mother and our mother-daughter legacy at Goucher while we were both still living. I am grateful that Goucher offered a path forward to establish this mother-daughter scholarship now and will continue to let it grow with additional contributions in the future.

What is your favorite memory of Goucher?

I have so many memories that play in a collage of sorts: meeting my roommate and discovering we shared a favorite author; singing with the Reverends Rebels a cappella group; honors program excursions to museums and theaters; late nights studying in the Julia Rogers’ carrels; GIG with music in the sunshine on the hill behind Mary Fisher; Saturday “bagel brunches” with my friends; four years of dorm life and late nights in Gallagher House (at its original location!); snow balls in the quad during a blizzard; favorite professors/classes (Baker, Kaplan, Bardaglio); a poly/sci Model UN trip to Boston; a winter study abroad in the UK trip; for my senior thesis, interviewing local elderly women—some of whom did secret WWII work; and about a dozen more memories. See, I can’t pick just one.