Meet Our Donors

Dr. Virginia F. Lewis

Centenarian Virginia Lewis came to know Eckerd through her lifelong love of teaching and learning. After earning a Ph.D. from Harvard and a long career in the Chicago Public Schools, retiring as Assistant Superintendent, she wanted to stay involved in teaching and intellectual pursuits.

“Being involved with Eckerd College has given me incredible opportunities to do that," Lewis said. “Discussions with members of the Academy of Senior Professionals at Eckerd College and with current students—so many of them serious learners—have allowed me to share my knowledge and continue to grow.”

To perpetuate her love of learning, Dr. Lewis has established the Virginia F. and Robert E. Lewis Scholarship Fund at Eckerd College for students in the Program for Experienced Learners (PEL). A member of The Kadel Society, Dr. Lewis’s estate gift also will support PEL scholarships.

Professor Bill Felice

Eckerd College Professor Bill Felice has spent his professional career bringing attention to the suffering of others. Through his teaching, two books and numerous academic papers and presentations, he has inspired intellectual debate, offered hope and posed solutions to global poverty and human rights inequities.

In 2006, Professor Felice was named the Florida Professor of the Year by the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Also honored numerous times in his 12 years at Eckerd College for student mentoring, Professor Felice is appreciated by many students for the transformative effect he has on their intellectual and ethical lives.

“It is a privilege to be on the faculty of a school that is fully committed to its students and the liberal arts,” Professor Felice said. “Eckerd College’s devotion to creative pedagogy is unrivaled.”

As a member of the Kadel Society, Professor Felice has made arrangements in his estate plans to perpetuate his lifelong quest for understanding and action by supporting scholarships for students studying international relations. “It is a true joy to support the hard-working faculty, administrators, staff and students of this outstanding educational institution,” Felice said.

Virginia Baxter

Virginia Baxter describes her life as an “incredible adventure” .Her Scotch-Irish ancestors who were potato famine immigrants but parochial Bostonians, hardly presaged as much.

Virginia grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of “a father who was a large, humorous, second generation Irish immigrant, who enjoyed food, drink, Cuban cigars, and a liberal curiosity about life”. Her mother was a “Victorian Congregationalist who blessed Virginia with a faith and a sense of public virtue borne of her Scottish-Puritan heritage” .

After attending Lasell College in Boston, Virginia married Arnold Baxter in 1944. The Baxters “enjoyed a comfortable middle-class life”, with son Tom, born in 1946. Upon retirement, Virginia and Arnold moved to Florida.

Upon the loss of Arnold to cancer in 1969, Virginia, now sixty-six, “reinvented herself”. “The best elements of Virginia’s roots and character blossomed” as she took on new responsibilities in her church and community as a volunteer. She describes herself as “a woman of positive action”. She has used her adversities as a school for service to others.

Virginia Baxter first learned about Eckerd College through her church, Lakeview Presbyterian in St. Petersburg, and became even more interested in the College when she learned of its marine science program; she has lived near the water most of her life.

Through her estate, Mrs. Baxter will establish The Virginia Adams Baxter Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will help students with financial need and strong academic ability to receive an Eckerd College education.

“I believe strongly in education and helping those who are motivated, and Eckerd College students, faculty and staff fit that description,” Mrs. Baxter said. “My money will do a great deal of good and benefit a large number of people at Eckerd”.

Col. Christian L. and Edna M. March,

From an Eckerd College newspaper ad promoting gifts-in-kind and the subsequent gift of their boat to the College in 1985, Col. and Mrs. Christian L. March, Jr. have become friends and faithful supporters of the College as only a few other non-alumni in its history. In addition to that first gift of their boat, by the end of the last century Larry and Eddie (as they prefer to be called by their friends) had donated a home in Virginia, numerous gifts of appreciated securities and cash both outright and through the College’s Charitable Gift Annuity program. They had designated their gifts for such useful purposes as the annual operation of the College and the endowment of library acquisitions and science equipment.

With the dawn of the new millennium, the ever shrinking world circumstances, and the growing need for the development of more peaceful pathways to better international understanding, the Marches, based on their service in the military, (he, Air Force; she, Navy) decided to make yet another gift to the College. Their objective was to direct their new gift and a significant portion of their previously undesignated gifts to establish a Lecture Series that would address this need.

Larry and Eddie believe that offering Eckerd students the variety of viewpoints expressed by speakers of differing nation origin, background, education, experience and outlook will contribute to such better understanding. Though, in the interest of objectivity, they do not participate in the selection of individual speakers, they do encourage a confluence of ideas toward the objective of true world stability and peace. This is the essence of the Col. Christian L. and Edna M. March International Relations Lecture Series.

The relationship the Marches have had with Eckerd College has indeed been a special experience. It has been one that promotes the kind of values-centered education described in Eckerd’s mission statement. The College is very grateful for their friendship, involvement, and thoughtful generosity. Our students and our community will become equipped better to find the means that a quality education and understanding of international relations provides as a result of their influence.

Judi Schraer
Director of Gift Planning
Eckerd College
4200 54th Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33711
(727) 864-8229