Posted January 20, 2000

IOWA CITY -- An estate gift valued at $1.4 million from a Cedar Rapids couple will help support scholarships and other programs at the University of Iowa. According to the UI Foundation, the bequest from longtime teachers Albert and Mildred "Ruth" Lindsay will endow a UI Presidential Scholarship, helping ensure that the UI continues to attract the best and brightest high school graduates. A portion of the gift will also provide unrestricted support for the UI as a whole.

"We are very grateful to the Lindsays, who have memorialized their love for education with a legacy that will benefit UI students for generations," said UI Foundation president Michael New.

Presidential Scholarships are the most prestigious form of student financial assistance offered by the UI. They are awarded competitively to select first-year students who ranked in the top five percent of their high school graduating class and who had a composite score on the ACT college entrance examinations of 30 or above. Each scholarship, which requires an endowment of $1 million, covers full tuition and fees for four years.

The Lindsays each had long careers as educators. Ruth Lindsay, a native of Washington, Iowa, who earned a B.A. degree at the university in 1934, taught in the Cedar Rapids schools for 43 years before her death in 1993. Albert Lindsay, a Cedar Rapids native who died in December 1998, received an M.A. degree at Iowa in 1948. He was superintendent of the Monroe Township Schools and also taught in Toddville, Iowa. He finished his career as an employee of the City of Cedar Rapids. The Lindsays had no immediate family.

R. P. "Dick" Minette, senior trust officer of Norwest Bank Iowa in Cedar Rapids, said that staff members of one of Norwest's Cedar Rapids branches near Albert Lindsay's home came to regard Lindsay fondly in the final years of his life. When Lindsay needed help with his financial affairs, the bank acted as his conservator and later as the executor of his estate.

"Many Norwest employees assisted Albert with both his financial and physical needs, including coordinating the delivery of meals to his home. We knew it meant a great deal to him to provide this support for the University, which was so important to him," Minette said.

The University of Iowa Foundation is the preferred channel of support for private contributions to all areas of the University of Iowa. Foundation staff work with alumni and friends to provide support for scholarships, professorships, facilities improvements, equipment purchases, research funds, and other support for the UI.

Contact Information

David Dierks
Assistant Vice President, Principal Gifts
(319) 335-3305 or (800) 648-6973

Additional information about supporting student scholarships at the UI also is available on this site.