From the Bulletin Today - May 8, 2008
The largest single gift for a scholarship fund in the history of the University of St. Thomas was announced at a noon picnic celebration on the St. Paul campus today.
Eugene and Mary Frey, a couple with a long history of supporting the university, are making a $10 million gift to St. Thomas' Opening Doors capital campaign to establish an endowed fund that will provide Frey Opportunity Grants to undergraduate students with established financial need.
Students of color, first-generation students, students from immigrant communities and students with physical disabilities will be given priority for the grants. The first grants were awarded this year.
The gift was announced today by Father Dennis Dease, St. Thomas' president, who introduced and thanked the Freys.
The gift addresses a central theme in the university's eight-year, $500 million campaign, which was announced last fall. Its largest priority is for financial aid to help ensure access to a St. Thomas education for generations of students from all economic and cultural backgrounds.
St. Thomas has raised $31,667,169 toward its $130 million goal for financial aid. That goal includes $85 million for undergraduate students and $45 million for graduate students. Overall, the university has received $333,358,516 toward its $500 million campaign goal.
When Eugene Frey attended St. Thomas six decades ago, tuition was $450. Next year, undergraduate tuition will top $27,000. That's one of the reasons he and his wife decided to support the university's effort to raise scholarship funds.
“I have been struck during our discussions about the changes in demographics and how it will become increasingly more difficult for many students to be able to afford a St. Thomas education,” said Frey, who has served on the St. Thomas Board of Trustees since 1988. “Scholarships are terribly important – more important than ever – and we believe this gift will help make a difference.”
The Freys also are aware of the need to raise funds for financial aid because of their experience in chairing the university's Ever Press Forward campaign in the 1990s. As successful as that campaign was in raising $250 million – double the $120 million goal – one priority fell short of its target.
“That was scholarships,” Frey said. St. Thomas raised $28 million toward its $40 million financial-aid goal, “and it bothered me that we couldn’t raise the full amount. I hope, and I expect, that we will do better during this Opening Doors campaign.”
His ties with St. Thomas go back 60 years. He enrolled at St. Thomas after graduating from Cretin High School in 1948 and transferred to the University of Minnesota, where he graduated in 1953. He became a management trainee at Waldorf Paper Products the following year and stayed for more than four decades, leading a management buyout of the firm in 1985. He eventually bought out his partners and ran the company until selling it in 1997.
He married Mary Frost, a graduate of St. Margaret’s Academy in Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota, in 1954 and they raised two sons and a daughter. Mary has been a leader in many community organizations, including Catholic Charities and the Catholic Community Foundation, whose board she chaired for several years. The couple received the Elizabeth Ann Seton Award, the National Catholic Education Association’s highest honor, in 2007.
The Frey name is on two St. Paul campus buildings – the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center and the Frey Science and Engineering Center. They were founders of St. Thomas' campus in downtown Minneapolis and contributed to the establishment of the law school, where the moot courtroom bears their name.
“Most of our gifts in the past were for bricks and mortar,” Eugene Frey said, “and we were fine with that. Those projects were high priorities for the university at the time.”
The times have changed, however, and the Freys are more than willing to help meet another priority: financial aid. “We’re just happy and feel privileged to be able to do this,” he said.
The Freys, who reside in Edina, Minn., and Naples, Fla., are making the gift through their Frey Foundation. The gift will be invested and proceeds from the endowment will support students for ongoing generations.