Development
Gratitude is the most valuable gift of all
Bonnie Larson, Don and Cec Borgeson
You can’t put a price on gratitude or on the value of a parent’s support and sacrifices, but MSU alumna Bonnie Larson (nee Borgeson) has found the perfect way to express her gratitude to her parents, Donald (BA Business Administration ’48) and Cecile (Cec) Borgeson, with a tribute that will always honor their love for Michigan State University. In 2006, Bonnie, and husband, Bob Larson, created an estate gift in the form of an endowment to MSU.
“MSU means so much to my parents. They met while students at Michigan State and supported decisions by my sister and me to attend MSU years later. In fact, Mom and I are both alumna of the same sorority at MSU. Mom and Dad gave us great traditions – and great examples – to follow. I just wanted to show how much that means to me, too,” says Larson.
The gift was made more special by the Larsons’ decision to allow Bonnie’s parents Don and Cec Borgeson to designate the MSU program that would benefit from the endowment.
For Don Borgeson, a former president of the MSU Alumni Association and past member of the Broad School’s Alumni Association Board of Directors, there was no hesitation in naming the Broad School to receive the funds; and so, the Cecile A. and Donald R. Borgeson Education Enhancement Fund was established there. The Borgesons, along with their daughter and sonin- law, identified several areas of endowment – student programs, scholarship and faculty – but chose to leave specific decisions about how the funds are spent within those program areas to the Broad School dean.
The spending flexibility in this endowment, says Robert B. Duncan, the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Dean, allows the Dean’s Office to direct funding assistance to areas of special emphasis within the guidelines set by the Larson-Borgeson family. “The Larsons’ gift, motivated by gratitude to her parents, not only honors them, but honors the generation-to-generation tradition of families educated at MSU. That legacy will be supported in part by the gift, contributing to an even better educational experience for our students far into the future,” he says.