Long-time professor of physical education Sandy Brownscombe is joining the Giving Tuesday movement, a national anti-consumer movement that answers to Black Friday. She’ll donate on that day (read more about her reasons for support below) to Eastern Mennonite University’s own Giving Tuesday movement. Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving: December 1, 2015. The fourth annual global movement was started by 92nd Street Y, a New York City-based nonprofit dedicated to community collaboration and service.
In 2014, the first year that EMU participated in Giving Tuesday, the University Fund grew by $10,000. This year, the goal is raise $15,000.
Giving Tuesday is just part of Brownscombe’s life-time commitment to supporting EMU with financial donations, as well as with her intellectual and professional gifts. Look for more stories about the people who give to EMU and their inspirations for giving in the next issue of Crossroads magazine. (And if you’d like to share who or what inspires you to to EMU, whether it’s $10 or more, whether it’s prayer or an in-kind gift, we’d like to hear why: just comment below or email devoffice@emu.edu.)
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Sandy Brownscombe is truly a Loyal Royal, arriving in 1978 at Eastern Mennonite College to teach physical education and education courses. Until 1998, she coached up to two teams a year. As comfortable on the field hockey pitch as she is in the gym with a basketball or a volleyball, Brownscombe successfully coached both women’s and men’s teams, earning ODAC honors as Coach of the Year and leading many teams to postseason play. In 2004, she was inducted into the Hall of Honor.
Her support isn’t limited to her athletics interests, however: University Commons, Campus Center and Suter Science Center have all borne the benefit of her donations, but Brownscombe says that “my heart always goes out to the University Fund.” This fund, channeled into campus life from financial aid to technology, is “the lifeblood that keeps us going.”
Brownscombe points to Professor Emerita Margaret M. Gehman ‘42 as her inspiration to donate. Gehman, who taught physical education and art courses, taught her young colleague about both teaching and giving as they sat down for long discussions about women’s sports and the risks and benefits of intercollegiate athletics.
The women’s basketball team began competing against other schools in 1965, and Brownscombe became their coach in 1978. Then-undergraduate dean Al Keim expressed his support for the games: It’s important for women to stand up for what they believe, Brownscombe recounts him saying.
That affirmation early in her time at EMU, she says, solidified her belief in and commitment to the university’s mission. She then asked herself the question, “Do I believe enough to give something back?”
Giving back as a faculty member is important, Brownscombe says, not only for its monetary value, but also as a representation of that commitment.
Ultimately, Brownscombe’s motivation for donating comes from “the people and the commitment to the institution that I’ve seen,” she says. “How can you not give back to that and watch [your investment] grow?”