Jeffrey Peek, a member of the Board of Trustees since 1998, who served on several Board committees, including the National Campaign Committee, was looking for some way to honor his late father-in-law, Robert Lewis Taylor, who was a longtime writer for The New Yorker and the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the 1959 novel, "The Travels of Jamie Mc Pheeters."

Peek and his wife Elizabeth were well aware that the College's first priority in its capital campaign is raising funds to assist students through scholarships. Peek, who is the Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse, First Boston, is also concerned that only 20% of TC's students get any kind of financial aid at all. After some consideration, the Peeks decided to create the Robert Lewis Taylor Scholarship, which will allow "generations of gifted students" the opportunity to attend Teachers College.

"We were interested in providing a gift that directly would impact students. One of the reasons I was attracted to TC is that it is an undiscovered gem in New York City. So anything we could do in the capital campaign to help meet the scholarship challenge while honoring my father-in-law just seemed natural,"

Peek is concerned about future generations of leaders and he sees education as the answer. "As we look around the world we live in, we need to meet the challenges to education. If there's a way we're going to move society forward, it certainly has to be substantially through education and there's no better institution than Teachers College to fulfill that mission.

If we can help high quality students get an opportunity to matriculate at Teachers College, or if we can give him/her an education, it's hard for me to think of a gift that's more long standing with better enduring value than that."

He continued with, "TC facilitates the development of leadership for the next generation so it would be sad and disappointing if there was somebody out there who had just terrific potential to contribute to the solutions facing education and somehow wasn't able to make it to TC because of financial resources. We like the idea that we're contributing more to the DNA of the next generation."

Peek recently learned that the first Robert Lewis Taylor Scholar is Carrie Gardner, who is working towards her Master's degree in Social Studies and Education. Peek said, "I always liked Social Studies when I was at school. So maybe there is a closing of the loop. I look forward to making her acquaintance and finding out if there are other things we can do to be helpful."

Gardner, who grew up in Ridgefield, New Jersey and received her bachelor's degree from Tufts University, said that she had switched careers. She worked in media relations in Boston but found it "personally unfulfilling." Gardner called being a Taylor Scholar "definitely an honor." She said, "the scholarship was an enormous incentive in my decision- making process to attend Teachers College. TC is a great institution but the scholarship certainly helped."

Published Thursday, Oct. 31, 2002