International Scholarship Helps
The 8,900-mile path from New Zealand to Storrs came to John C. Rutherford, M.S. ’74 in the form of an engineering assistantship, offered by a UConn professor on sabbatical.
“I didn’t even know where UConn was, or how cold it was going to be,” he recalls. “I really wanted to see the States, though, and this was an opportunity to do it.”
The experience of being an international student in the 1970s was challenging, Rutherford says, because the poor economic times didn’t help to make college in America any more affordable.
“There hadn’t even been a system for college loans in New Zealand, because it was all provided by the government,” he says.
“As the tuition here increased, it became very difficult to afford it. In my second semester, UConn really came through for me by offering financial assistance. It was a minor miracle at the time, and enabled me to stay on and complete the program.”
Today, Rutherford is the founder and managing partner of Parthenon Capital, a private equity investment firm in Boston and San Francisco with more than $1.5 billion in managed capital. To support today’s international students at UConn, he recently made a $50,000 gift to create the John and Ann Ellen Rutherford Scholarship for International Students.
“I wanted to repay the University for what they had given me,” he says. “It’s a matter of giving back.”
In today’s global economy, Rutherford sees a need for a larger understanding of the world around us.
“America is such a big country that there’s a tendency to focus on ourselves,” he says. “In my opinion, we’re underexposed to other parts of the world.”
The education of foreign cultures also goes both ways.
“There’s an advantage any time that people from different cultures can start a dialog and make each other aware of how they see things,” he adds. “For example, in New Zealand, college is viewed as free. To me, that just seemed like the way things ought to be, but once I was here I realized that it wasn’t truly free.”
While the need for global awareness is there, Rutherford believes that states find themselves torn between the responsibilities of educating their own citizens, as well as those who live beyond their borders.
“It’s not easy for a state institution to address this unilaterally,” he says. “There’s an expectation that the state provides for its own residents first, so I see this as an area where private gifts can be very helpful.”
To support the Rutherford Scholarship, please contact Lisa Baronio, vice president for development, at 860.486.4618.
