Swanson Bequest Supports Library Student Employees
Kim and Jude began their life together just a stone’s throw from the MSU Main Library – sitting side by side on the banks of the Red Cedar River during their first week as MSU students. Jude spent three years working in the Science Library, an opportunity she looks back on with great appreciation. “My job in the Science Library made an enormous difference in my education,” she explained. “It was very satisfying to be given responsibility for a set of tasks and to know my efforts made a real contribution to our department’s performance. Our supervisors took the student workers seriously as employees and taught us to see ourselves that way. It was an irreplaceable introduction to the world of work.” Kim echoed Jude’s enthusiasm for the value of an MSU education and the library’s role in making it possible. “Coming from a small high school in the Upper Peninsula, MSU’s diversity and sheer size was thrilling,” he recalled. “Meeting people from so many different backgrounds, the variety of experiences you could have, the professors who demonstrated the love of exploration and inquiry – our MSU education was so much more than the knowledge gained in the classroom, important as that was. MSU gave us opportunities and possibilities we would never have had otherwise, and the library is a microcosm of that experience. The library connects students to a universe of knowledge far beyond what any one person can absorb. Stepping into the library – just like enrolling for that very first semester of classes – should be as overwhelming as it is exciting.” Because the Kim and Jude Swanson MSU Endowment for Library Student Employees is an endowed fund, the principal of their gift will remain intact. Each year, only a portion of the available interest earned will be used to provide competitive wages for student workers throughout the library system, while the remainder will be reserved and reinvested to grow the principal of the fund. “With our gift, we want to recognize the value of student employees to the library system. And just as important, we want to recognize the value of library employment as part of a student’s educational experience,” Kim explained. “A job in the library greatly increases a student’s exposure to the world of knowledge and to information gathering skills that will enhance their success in college and beyond. We want to make library employment attractive to students and to reward them well for the excellent work they do.” The Swansons are also motivated by a desire to inspire their fellow alumni to help make an MSU education available to others. “We wholeheartedly believe in giving back to the people and institutions that have given something to us,” Jude said. “The future of MSU depends on those of us whose lives have been enriched by MSU. If we don’t support MSU, who will?” If you would like more information on supporting the Swanson Endowment or any other area of the MSU Libraries, contact Diane Nye Mattick at (517) 432-6123, ext. 137, or nyed@msu.edu. Michigan State University Planned Giving content ©2008 VirtualGiving | Disclaimer & Privacy Notice |
“Michigan State University opened up countless opportunities for us,” said Judith Ann “Jude” Swanson, who, with her husband Kim, has documented a $1 million bequest from their estate to the MSU Libraries for an endowed fund to benefit student workers. “That educational experience would never have been so rich, so broadening, or so beneficial to us without the library.”