A generous $5.25 million gift from alumnus Larry Bell ‘80 is funding a distinguished chair in American history, the Center for Environmental Stewardship, and food justice and sustainability programming. Additional funds are supporting the Larry J. Bell ‘80 Endowed Scholarship, originally established in 2017. These endowments will actively enrich students’ learning on campus with new classroom and experiential education opportunities, while also supporting faculty teaching and scholarship.

“I am proud to support Kalamazoo College with this gift and I look forward to seeing the resulting positive outcomes for K’s students,” Bell said. “I hope that the coming Larry J. Bell Library Foundation can be a help and resource to the history department in the future, and having an endowed chair there will elevate and strengthen this part of the College.” 

Bell has long been an active supporter of the College. Along with the scholarship he established in 2017 for students with financial need, in 2006 he contributed to an endowment named for his friend and mentor, Paul Todd ’42. His funding to support K’s food justice initiatives over the last decade has been crucial to the College’s student-led programming through the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, allowing the center to maximize the impact of this programming in the Kalamazoo community. 

Read the full story on Bell’s donation