College of the Humanities receives ultimate vote of confidence

It took nearly twenty years of casual browsing and three years of intense research to find the perfect university, but last week Pamela and Richard Joho made it official: they found what they were looking for in the College of the Humanities.

The couple announced that they would donate the bulk of their life savings, through lifetime and planned giving arrangements, to the College of Humanities. This very generous donation will be used to establish a scholarship that will eventually cover all costs for each humanities student, including tuition fees, housing, textbooks, meals and living expenses, allowing them to focus completely on their studies. The inaugural scholarship will be awarded in 2010 to selected students who demonstrate academic excellence and community and/or extra-curricular involvement.

“It was the College of the Humanities that sealed the deal,” Pamela says, explaining why they chose Carleton University as the destination for their generosity. “Their mission, their vision, the strictly small college component. The way you live together. It’s not just taking courses; you come together and have important conversations.”

The Johos, who have no previous connection to the university, first visited Carleton two years ago after discovering the university through a Google search. While they were instantly impressed with Carleton’s interdisciplinary approach to education and that the College offered a fundamental liberal arts degree – a degree they so deeply value – they note that the Carleton community also significantly contributed to their decision.

“The people we’ve met here from Carleton – we’ve seen their dedication and commitment to the students and education,” says Pamela.

Richard adds, “John Osborne has been very important. When we came here two years ago, John came by and spent two hours speaking to us. We were so impressed that he invested that time not knowing who we were or what we were offering.”

Osborne, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences under which the College is housed, holds equal respect for the Johos which he vocalized during the scholarship announcement: “Richard and Pamela would be the first to say that they are, in many respects, ordinary people from ordinary middle-class backgrounds. But there is nothing about their spirit that I would describe as being the least bit ‘ordinary’. Their own lives have been given meaning by reading and thinking – and now they are giving that precious gift- the opportunity to read and to think – to a great many others.”

Their generous and most significant donation is a testament to both the College of the Humanities and the university: as the Johos said while officially announcing their donation, “We’ve come to believe in Carleton.”

The couple’s involvement with Carleton will continue throughout their lives. They’ve arranged to have some humanities professors provide them with the same course materials and books the students receive. Pamela says this will allow them to experience what the students are learning simultaneously.

But their participation isn’t strictly academic. Richard vows to buy season tickets if Carleton establishes a football team. “We’d be at every game,” he says with a smile.