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Alum Helps Point Students in a Global Direction
Carol and Bob Lockyer, ’68 Give Passports to the World with New Scholarship
A brand new “GPS” will help Thomas Jefferson University students find their way in the world.
Robert “Bob” Lockyer, ’68, and his wife, Carol, have established the Lockyer GPS—or Global Passport Scholarship—at the university with a leadership gift. The scholarship will provide financial aid-based grants to students at the College of Architecture and the Built Environment who are embarking on study abroad programs.
Bob Lockyer says the scholarship stems from a desire to “give back to the school that was willing to take a chance on me.”
“We’ve all got to remember where we came from and who got us started,” he says. “Giving kids an opportunity to study abroad can only expand their minds related to their field. Giving financial aid to students from underrepresented demographic populations and single-parent households provides them an opportunity they might not otherwise have.”
Bob says he took his philanthropic lead from his mother, Betty Lockyer Merriam, who gave back, even when she could not really afford to do so. “It left a deep impression on me and I have tried to follow her example.”
Giving kids an opportunity to study abroad can only expand their minds related to their field.
Over the years, the Lockyers have established a fully-endowed scholarship for underserved minorities; made a leadership gift to the building of the Kanbar Student Center and the Gallagher Athletic, Recreation, and Convocation Center; and donated a racing shell for the university’s intercollegiate rowing program. In 2001, Bob initiated a successful annual golf outing to benefit the athletic program at the university.
Bob says he hopes this latest gift to create the GPS will help “move the needle” in global understanding and education.
Sean Lockyer, ’99, Bob and Carol’s son, says studying abroad opened his eyes as to how other cultures live, work, and interact.
“I was only able to truly experience this by immersing myself in the culture and surrounding myself with the locals for an extended period of time,” Sean says. “A mere travel vacation would never have provided the same experience.”