A $2 million gift from Rebecca "Becky" Quinn Morgan '60 and her husband, James C. Morgan '60, MBA '63, has endowed a fund in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) in the College of Human Ecology (CHE).
The endowment will establish a Director's Innovation Fund to support early-stage research projects that meaningfully engage communities, which is a hallmark of the BCTR. The center promotes working together with communities to develop and apply research and brings together a host of programs and projects, including youth development through New York State 4-H, Act for Youth and the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE). The center also includes the Purpose Science and Innovation Exchange (PSiX), an initiative that BCTR director Anthony Burrow recently launched to study the development and benefits of having a sense of purpose. PSiX will partner with youth-serving organizations interested in cultivating this sense to enhance young people's well-being.
"Having witnessed the profound impact that Tony Burrow and the Bronfenbrenner team have made through PRYDE, I am pleased to support engaged learning and translational research more broadly through the establishment of this endowment," Becky Morgan said. "I am confident that Tony and future directors will leverage it to foster innovative work with lasting significance."
She has a long history of involvement in the college, as well as the university, where she served as trustee from 1998-2006. In 1991, she received the Human Ecology Dean's Award for Public Service, and in 2011, she received the Human Ecology Alumni Association's Helen Bull Vandervort Alumni Achievement Award. She and her husband endowed the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the College of Human Ecology in 2001. And they recently endowed the Morgan Engaged Faculty Fellowship in the BCTR, currently held by Denise Green '07, associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design.
"I'm tremendously grateful for this investment because of the programmatic innovation it will unlock throughout our center," said Burrow. "This support enables us to strategically expand any aspect of our research, training and outreach platforms to capitalize on emerging opportunities as they arise - a truly rare and exciting capacity to incorporate into the work we do and aspire to explore new ways of doing."
Rachel Dunifon, Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of CHE, said, "This endowment will empower future directors to ensure the center remains at the forefront of groundbreaking scientific research, developed through partnerships with community organizations."
Robin Roger is the assistant dean for communications for the College of Human Ecology.
