For years, Bonnie Mills ’81 has been a regular contributor to the Oxy Fund.
“I’ve always believed in giving back to where I came from,” says Mills, a history major who transferred to Oxy from Connecticut College at the end of her sophomore year (“It was in a small town—too small for me”).
No stranger to philanthropy—she heads a family foundation in Austin, Texas—her service on Occidental’s Student Access and Opportunity Task Force over the past year convinced her to create the Bonnie K. Mills ’81 Endowed Scholarship.
“I learned a lot about endowment giving and what that means for the College and its ability to recruit students,” the new trustee says. She was impressed to learn that the financial aid office works individually with families and walks them through the process of how to pay for college. “That’s not something you see at big universities,” she says.
Mills also was impressed by Oxy’s commitment to educating students about their role in our democracy. “I really appreciate that commitment to teaching people about what it means to live in a free country, and to bring up the next generation with a commitment to equality, diversity and all the things that make this country what it is.”