"If a student is to achieve integration in knowledge and to acquire a broad, humane point of view, it will happen only when the mind is stimulated and influenced by teachers who have themselves done these things."
- Former Lawrence University President Nathan Marsh Pusey, in a letter to The Rockefeller Foundation in 1945 requesting funding for the Freshman Studies Program.
Fiscal 2005 saw the successful completion of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) challenge grant to endow the Freshman Studies Program. Awarded in December 2001 to Lawrence University, the $500,000 challenge grant was contingent upon the college raising $2 million (a 4:1 match) by July 31, 2005. The challenge was completed nearly six months ahead of the deadline, allowing the college to raise additional funds in the final six months of the challenge. These gifts, together with matching support, brought the total raised to nearly $2.6 million. The fund, now fully endowed, will be named the Nathan Marsh Pusey Freshman Studies Endowment in memory of Lawrence’s tenth president, who created the program in 1945.