CHBS Endowment Fund Wall is a ‘thank you’ to donors and reminder to students that financial support is available to them

Friends and supporters of Radford University and the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences (CHBS) gathered at Hemphill Hall on Oct. 1, 2021, for the unveiling and dedication of the Endowment Fund Wall.

Located just inside the building’s campus-side entrance, the 9-by-7-foot display features a beehive design with wood-graved plaques noting CHBS scholarships and their donors. The wall features 34 engraved plaques that note CHBS scholarships. Additional plaques remain blank, awaiting the names of future donors.

The fund wall serves three important purposes, said CHBS Dean Matthew J. Smith, Ph.D. First, it “offers a visible and enduring thank you to all those who have endowed student scholarships within the college,” Smith said moments before recognizing those in attendance who have contributed to endowed scholarships.

It also serves as a reminder to students of the financial support opportunities available to them, and it encourages future donors “to consider the value of a gift of this kind to our students,” Smith said.

Funding for the wall’s installation was made possible by financial support from members of the CHBS Advisory Board. Alumnus and board chair James Egbert ’87 said the group wants to encourage and help students grow, and we “want to give back what we got from our time at Radford.”

The wall’s location is along one of the highest traffic areas on campus, Smith said, where “thousands of students egress daily traveling from the quad to our classrooms and back again.”

One of the scholarships represented on the wall is the MacKinnon Scholarship for the Advancement of the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences at Radford University.

Senior Bailey Graham, a psychology and sociology double major from Roanoke, Virginia, spoke at the Friday afternoon ceremony. She said the support she has received from the MacKinnon Scholarship has been “invaluable” because it allows her to spend more time on academics, “which has allowed me to maintain a 4.0 GPA,” Graham said.

The fund wall artwork was designed by Foster Sheppard, senior graphic design manager in the Office of University Relations, and was inspired, Smith said, “by Radford’s traditional notion of the hive, where industrious bees work together to build individual honeycombs into the communal hive.”

Among the scholarship plaques on the wall is an illustration of a bee alongside an inscription that reads “Building the Hive since 1910.” Radford University was established that year as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Radford.

Just before the red curtain was removed for the unveiling, Smith instructed those gathered to “turn the corner and see what all the buzz is about.”