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College Inaugurates Federighi Professorship
On April 6, 2005, physics professor Daniel Stinebring gave his inaugural lecture as the first Francis D. Federighi, PhD ’53 Professor in Natural Science. The lecture gave occasion for the professorship’s founder, Renie M. Federighi ’54, and her daughter Carol to return to Oberlin to celebrate the life of a beloved husband and father – and the results of a well-planned gift.
The professorship memorializes Francis D. Federighi, the reserved baseball enthusiast with a wry, understated sense of humor who dedicated his life to research and higher education. His wife Renie created the professorship in 2004 while working on her class’s 50th reunion gift committee. “I started looking at some of the options I was pitching to my classmates,” she recalls. “And I realized I could do something significant, too, that would help Oberlin and my estate plan.”
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| Renie M. Federighi ’54 (above, with daughter Carol) returned to campus recently to celebrate the Francis D. Federighi, PhD ’53 Endowed Professorship in Natural Science – the result of her 50th reunion planned gift in memory of her husband. |
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But her desire to help her class achieve its $2.0 million goal was only one of the reasons she made a stretch gift to Oberlin. “Some of the happiest years of [Francis’s] life were at Oberlin,” she explains. “A gift that supports the academic life of the College seemed a wonderful way to honor him.”
The professorship is a model of how a carefully planned charitable gift can increase the impact of a donor’s assets. The endowment was created by a combination of life insurance and a gift annuity, wherein the annual annuity payments are used to pay the insurance premiums and support the current-use needs of the College – one of the more complicated gifts the College has helped orchestrate in recent years, but one that was well worth the careful planning of both donor and staff.
“This gift shows how donors can double, even triple the impact of their gifts to Oberlin by partnering with us,” says Director of Gift Planning Catherine Klima Gletherow. “We were pleased to work with Renie and her financial advisor to make this complex gift a reality.”
The result of this partnership is a 50th reunion gift committee that met its goal, a well-planned estate for the Federighi family, and an endowed professorship that will celebrate the academic excellence of the College and the life of a well-loved alumnus for decades to come.
To learn more about creating an endowment through a planned gift, please contact us at gift.planning@oberlin.edu or (440) 775-8599.
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