A faculty member and alumna of a struggling Iowa college is donating half a million dollars to keep the school open. Iowa Wesleyan. Biology professor Dolores Poulter Wilson wants her school in Mt. Pleasant to stay open much longer than that.
“I could do a whole lot with a half million dollars. That even staggers me, you know? But what would’ve been the gain there? And we’re at a critical point,” Wilson says.
Wilson says she graduated from Iowa Wesleyan with one dollar and 87 cents to her name, and that she only got her degree because of the school’s scholarships and donations. She went on to teach a the school for 56 years.
“With this university we’re at the same place I was in 1962, really, as an individual,” Wilson says. “And that may be presumptuous to say that, but look at all the students I’ve had the privilege of teaching, all the people that I’ve had the privilege of being with and learn from.”
The school needs more than two million dollars to stay open and school leaders are meeting with local and federal officials, bankers and businesses trying to get more support. University leaders say they’re hopeful her example inspires others.
(Thanks to Amy Mayer, Iowa Public Radio)