Before making their latest gift to the Ever Elon Campaign, Bill and Liz Sprague sat down with the two family members who have benefitted the most from Elon: daughter Abby, an Elon senior, and son Travis, who is a freshman.
Together, they decided to endow the Sprague Family Study Abroad Scholarship to enable students with financial need to participate in one of Elon’s renowned engaged learning programs.
“Liz and I feel strongly about giving back to the institutions that have helped us, and we thought it was important for our children to be part of this decision at Elon,” says Bill Sprague, president and CEO of Madison Williams and Company, a financial services firm in New York.
Sprague called Abby’s experiences studying in Spain and China “eye-opening” and credits his daughter with suggesting that the family support international education.
“Abby felt very strongly that study abroad was one of the benefits she has received from Elon, and she wanted to make those opportunities possible for students who might not be able to afford it,” Sprague says.
The family also wanted to help Elon continue to attract students from a variety of backgrounds.
“The benefits that all students get from interacting with students from other backgrounds, including different socio-economic backgrounds, are significant,” Sprague says. “Targeting our gift where it can help the entire student body is important to us.”
The Sprague Family Study Abroad Scholarship is one of more than 175 endowed scholarships that have been created during the Ever Elon Campaign. Approximately 25 percent of those scholarships have been established to support study abroad.
