Librarians pledge scholarship funds for student colleagues

Raymond W. "Tag" Sanders and Dorothy Jewell Sanders

Dorothy Sanders’ education at KU may have been cut short by the hardships of the Great Depression, but that didn’t stop her from dreaming of a college education for daughters Nancy and Kathryn.

In honor of her parents’ dedication to education, Nancy Sanders, a 1967 graduate of KU, and her husband, William Crowe, Spencer librarian, have pledged $250,000 through their estate for the Raymond W. "Tag" Sanders and Dorothy Jewell Sanders Fund at KU Endowment. The fund will provide financial support for Sanders Scholars, student employees of the KU libraries who will work with librarian mentors.

Nancy Sanders, whose own career as a librarian took her to several universities, most recently The Ohio State University, said she hopes the Sanders fund will help future KU students choose librarianship as a career. One way to encourage that choice is through mentoring relationships, she said. John Nugent, now a retired KU librarian, fostered such a relationship with her when she was a student employee of the libraries.

“I hope that the mentoring relationship that was so important for me will be repeated to encourage the next generation of students to consider librarianship,” she said.

Stella Bentley, dean of libraries, said the Sanders fund will enable students to learn more about libraries and see librarianship as an exciting career.

“Nancy Sanders and Bill Crowe recognize the great need for more librarians, especially in the digital age,” Bentley said. “This fund will provide the resources critical to fostering student interests in library science.”

The gift from Nancy Sanders and William Crowe will be administered by KU Endowment, an independent, non-profit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for the University of Kansas. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university and one of the largest.