Alumni Couple Gives Back Through
From the October 2008 issue of UConn e-Momentum.
A new endowment created by an alumni couple, one of whom played a key role in alumni relations at UConn in the 1970s, will support undergraduate student scholarships.
The gift from Norman ’51 and Alice ’48 Jolie will create the Jolie Family scholarship fund in part as thanks for the help UConn provided after Mr. Jolie’s retirement from the U.S. Air Force. The Jolie's adult children, Phyllis Bonneau '82, Francis Jolie '79, Patricia Zotzmann '81 and Katherine Monahan, also contributed.
Following ROTC at UConn and a long military career, mostly in public affairs, Jolie was hired in 1969 as the assistant director of alumni relations by President Homer Babbidge. He held the position until 1979.
The 1970s were a time of tremendous growth for the UConn Alumni Association. With 50,000 alumni on the records, great progress was made in developing new areas of activity. Major gift clubs were expanded, the travel and insurance programs developed into the largest in the United States, phonathons and alumni career days were instituted, and the Investment Committee and other new alumni committees were added.
“I was known as ‘Mr. Alumni,’ and people knew more about me than probably anyone else,” he says. “I was travelling all of the time, working 14 hours a day, because we found you couldn’t meet with alumni during the day; it was always nights and weekends. But I really loved the work; it was an all-out effort to connect with our alumni.”
Alice Jolie also was a longtime UConn employee, working as the administrative assistant to the dean of the School of Nursing.
The couple, celebrating their sixtieth anniversary in 2008, says the changes at UConn in their lifetimes have been remarkable.
“It’s really unbelievable,” Mr. Jolie says. “Of course, one of the biggest changes in the early days was the massive influx of veterans coming in the University through the G.I. Bill. That had a huge impact. But the growth in the last decade has been so quick and so impressive.”
The memories of the University and the help it gave to the couple made the decision to give a natural one. The scholarship is intended to provide for incoming freshmen enrolled full-time in the University
“When we started thinking about it, we realized how much we benefited from what we gained at UConn. My education was paid for by the G.I. Bill. I learned about journalism writing at the Connecticut Campus, which helped me later in my career. Alice worked at the library to afford school. It all really just came back to us,” he explains.
“If it hadn’t been for that help, we would never have been able to afford college. In those days, scholarships weren’t plentiful, and were really only for the top students. I sometimes think I was lucky to get out of high school! We wanted to give back in a way that helps students, and this just made sense. We’re happy to help.”
For more information about supporting the School of Business, please contact the UConn Foundation's development department.
