Profiles in Giving: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Stephen Hulme
Raleigh, North Carolina

"We need to keep the liberal arts alive. It's important for those who have extra resources to give. If we don't do it, who will?"

That's how Stephen H. Hulme, who graduated from the UI with a 1974 B.A. degree in classics and a 1980 B.S. degree in computer science, sums up his decision to give generously to the Department of Classics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Hulme's pledged gift of $100,000 to endow the Stephen H. Hulme Fund in Classics -- to be used at the discretion of the department's chair to help students and faculty with vital educational inititatives -- is very important to the department, as UI budgets become tighter and more and more students enroll in the program.

Hulme, who lives in Raleigh, N.C., with his wife, Gloria, and works as a Program Manager for Sun Microsystems, credits the rhetorical skills and mental discipline he acquired in the Department of Classics for his career success.

Hulme says that in recent visits to the department, he has been impressed by its dynamism, noting the world-class faculty and a solid student body. There are about 30 classics majors today as opposed to just 5 when he was an undergraduate.

Wanting to keep that momentum going, Hulme decided that it was time to give back to the school that had given him so much. He's answered the call in exemplary fashion -- and generations of UI classics students will benefit from his selflessness and vision.

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