My four years in Morningside Heights were transformative. Columbia opened my eyes to the limitless educational possibilities offered by a great university, set in a diverse and resource-rich city.

Coming to NYC from a genteel, sheltered western suburb of Boston in August 1979 proved a powerful antidote to suburban preconceptions and, yes, prejudices concerning poverty and opportunity in America. The obstacles to acquiring a quality education were everywhere apparent, and remain just as formidable today. A policy of need-blind admissions is absolutely critical to overcome the significant financial hurdles facing students and their families. That's what most motivates me to support the Columbia College Fund.

I grew up in a working class family in Brooklyn, New York. Neither of my parents graduated from high school. When I was in my senior year in high school, I had little knowledge about colleges or where to apply. A high school counselor brought Columbia to my attention, and I became a member of the Class of 1977. Columbia College was truly a life-changing experience for me and revealed a world of unlimited possibilities. The core curriculum provided an excellent foundation for higher learning and has defined my personal and professional being. My achievements are a direct reflection of my Columbia education, and I am eternally grateful for that experience.

I could not have attended Columbia without scholarships and financial aid. It is critically important that we give back to Columbia and support the endowment so that others of limited means will have the same opportunity that I experienced. A diverse student body is necessary to maintain the vitality and intellectual superiority of Columbia as an institution. I urge all alumni to support Columbia College by contributing to the endowment and the annual fund.

Family members and friends often ask how I find the time to fulfill my personal and professional responsibilities, and volunteer for Columbia. The answer is simple: I make time because I feel a strong sense of duty and commitment to alma mater.

I am a first-generation American born to Colombian immigrants. My mother was a seamstress in a clothing factory and my father was a New York City taxi driver. As a young girl, my parents instilled in me the importance of education. They'd say, "It will open many doors for you, and with it you'll beat poverty."

When I was admitted to Columbia, it was a wonderful dream. That dream became a reality thanks to the generous financial aid awards and scholarships that I received throughout my undergraduate years. The generosity of others allowed me to obtain a premier college education that prepared me well for graduate school and for my professional endeavors.

I aspire to give others the opportunity to attend Columbia. I hope to accomplish this by supporting the College financially and by serving as an Alumni Representative Committee, and as the Scholarship Chair of the Latino Alumni Association of Columbia University.

Columbia has played a transformational role in our lives. It began the moment we set foot on campus, and it continues to shape who we are today.

More than 20 years ago, we received the best education offered anywhere in the world. We met students from dozens of countries and were exposed to a learning community as diverse as New York itself. We took courses with a former National Security Advisor, an editor of The Riverside Shakespeare, and countless other scholars who fueled our intellectual curiosity. We are forever grateful to our parents for the opportunity to attend Columbia, and by supporting the College, we feel that we can enrich the lives of current and future students.

It is a privilege to be able to support Columbia College. Columbia was the place where I was first exposed to the great ideas and works that have influenced our culture, to professors who stimulated intellectual excitement, and to other students who were eager to learn and had so much to share. I still remember as if it were yesterday listening to Professor Joseph Rothschild, my CC professor, lecturing on Hobbes' view of human nature and of life as "nasty, poor, mean, brutish, and short", and have often reflected on how modern Hobbes' sensibility was. A Columbia education taught me that ideas matter and instilled in me a passion for learning that has stayed with me to this day. I support Columbia in gratitude for the experience it gave me and also to enable it to afford the same experience to future generations of Columbia students.

As I've told many undergraduates, Columbia offers the greatest liberal arts education. The Core Curriculum provides the opportunity to broaden oneself intellectually and to become a well-rounded person. It's the last chance to do so, in my opinion, as I consider graduate school to be vocational training. As a premed, I had to take many required science courses, which limited my time for liberal arts courses. The few I took were wonderful, and I wish I had been able to take more. I had the good fortune to attend class with the great Moses Hadas. David Denby '65's New Yorker articles on Homer piqued my interest, and I returned to Columbia when I retired from medicine, earning an M.A. in Jewish studies in 2000. I am the proud possessor of two Columbia degrees in two centuries and two millennia. I attend Dean's Day and the John Jay Colloquium, where I've had the opportunity to revisit the Core Curriculum at a leisurely pace. One of my proudest achievements was the endowing of a scholarship in my mother's memory in 1989. I was fortunate enough to be able to earn my tuition working summers, impossible for today's students. Helping them to obtain this great College education is a great personal reward.