Our legacy...
The Class of 1962
Student Enrichment Fund

First some history of the Fund:
As you may or may not remember, our Class gift the Academy as we passed though the Iron Gate was to establish a "Speakers' Fund". As discussed in this letter from 1962 to Dodd Stacy, the initial concept was to build the fund up to $25,000 and then start using about $1000 per year to supplement the Academy's program for bringing unique world-class educational and entertainment experiences to Culver, in the vein of the eclectic variety which we saw as cadets: Hal Halbrook in Mark Twain Tonight, Miriam Makeba, Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, Shakespeare's Richard III, Chad Mitchell Trio, The (Harry) Belafonte Folk Singers, ...

As of June 30, 2023, that Fund had grown to over $1.9 million! With that level of endowment, we hope that the legacy of the Class of '62 will continue to enhance the educational experience at Culver in perpetuity. The growth of this endowment has led us to recently change the name of the fund to the "Class of '62 Student Enrichment Fund" (SEF) to reflect the intent to enrich the student experience far beyond simply speakers. That agreement between the Class of '62 and the Culver Educational Foundation (CEF) is formally documented in this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Following the establishment of the MOU, we formed a joint Committee consisting of representatives from the Class of '62, the Culver faculty, and current students. If you would like to participate in this Committee which will be setting the policies for the endowment and participating in selecting the enrichments that are brought to the Academy, contact the Committee Chair, Jay Owen.

In early 2017, at the suggestion of Craig Duchossois, and with concurrence from other class leadership and the CEF, it was decided to transfer funds from the Student Enrichment Fund to a separate fund to establish an endowed scholarship to recognize our honorary classmate: Mr. Robert B.D. "Bob" Hartman, who started teaching at the Academy in 1958 ... the same year most of our class also arrived on campus. More background on this decision can be found in this President's Message to the class from February 2017.

Here is the Amendment to the SEF MOU agreeing to moving funds from the SEF to the Hartman Scholarship Fund, and here is the MOU establishing the Hartman Scholarship.