Spring 2009: Campaign Update

Portrait of Jim and Berta Laney.

Jim and Berta Laney’s bequest will support the Emory Advantage financial aid program.

Ann Borden

Laneys’ Legacy Gift Includes Emory as Family

Related site

campaign.emory.edu

Emory President Emeritus Jim Laney 94H and his wife, Berta 94H, have spent more than forty years as an integral part of the Emory University community. The Laneys recently renewed their commitment to Emory with a bequest that divides the value of their estate into six equal parts: one for each of their five children and one for Emory. A bequest is one way to participate in Campaign Emory, the University’s $1.6 billion fund-raising effort.

Four of the Laneys’ children and three grandchildren have graduated from Emory. Five more grandchildren are students at Emory, and the couple has eight younger grandchildren they hope may attend one day.

“Emory runs very deep in our family,” says Jim Laney, who first came to Emory nearly forty years ago as dean of Candler School of Theology. “Our gift is simply because we consider Emory a part of our family.”

The Laneys’ gift will support the Emory Advantage financial aid program for low- and middle-income students. Established in 2007, Emory Advantage is open to undergraduate students at Oxford College, Emory College of Arts and Sciences, Goizueta Business School, and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

Emory’s seventeenth president, Laney guided the University from 1977 to 1993. He led Emory to the world’s top tier of research universities and—believing that universities should educate the heart as well as the mind—made the moral and ethical development of students a core element of his presidency.

“Jim and Berta Laney have left a profound and enduring legacy at Emory by their quarter-century of active teaching and leadership here,” says President James Wagner. “Their gracious intention to support Emory Advantage is a wonderful gift to future generations.”

For more information on charitable bequests or other ways to support Emory through the campaign, call 404.727.8875 or visit www.campaign.emory.edu/ways-to-give and click on Gift Planning.