Greensboro College Receives Pledge of $250,000 Estate Gift from Alumna and Her Partner
GREENSBORO, N.C. — A Greensboro College alumna and former trustee, Jann Haynes Gilmore, Ph.D., Class of 1968, and her partner, B. Joyce Puckett, have initiated a $250,000 endowment for the Department of Art through their estate plan.
“We are grateful for this generous planned gift,” said President Lawrence D. Czarda, Ph.D. “And we’re especially pleased that Gilmore and Puckett’s plans include significant funding for our art department’s expanding program, which has recently begun offering a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.”
Gilmore was born in Elkin, N.C., and was among the Class of 1968’s extraordinary class of leaders. She was among the first group of art majors to occupy the art studio in the newly-built Cowan Humanities Building. She was a class officer, and she went on to the University of Georgia, where she earned a master’s and Ph.D. in art history. There she met her late husband, law student Donald Perkins Gilmore, Jr.
Gilmore has received the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award and has served the college on the Alumni Board, the former Board of Visitors, and the Board of Trustees. She spoke at the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Colloquium at Greensboro College in 2016.
“My undergraduate education at Greensboro College provided me with a superior platform on which to continue my graduate education through a Ph.D.,” Gilmore said. “I also had the privilege to study American literature and world history under excellent faculty at my alma mater.”
“Education in the arts and humanities opens a world of knowledge and life-long skills and interests for college-age young people at a critical time in their lives,” Puckett said. “I have come to know the Greensboro College community through Jann and her life-long Greensboro College classmates and friends, as well as faculty and administration, and I am pleased that we are able to provide this legacy to Greensboro College students.”
A recent book by Gilmore, “Olive Rush: Finding Her Place in the Santa Fe Art Colony,” won the Historical Society of New Mexico’s Ralph Emerson Twitchell Award for its outstanding contribution to the cultural history of the American Southwest.
Gilmore has written seven more books including “Doors of Fame,” “Greetings from Delaware and Other Artists Communities,” “Almost Forgotten: Delaware Women Artists and Art Patrons,” and most recently “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Wayne, Maine.”
In addition to her independent scholar career, Gilmore has served as director of the Museums Program at the National Endowment for the Humanities and held staff positions in the U.S. Department of the Interior and in the U.S. House of Representatives.
She has spent her career researching and recognizing forgotten American women artists and is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Women Artists organization, whose goal is for contemporary women artists to be equally recognized with men artists in American museums.
Joyce Puckett is a life-long educator who spent decades as a fifth-grade teacher in Annapolis, Md., where she served on the Ann Arundel County Women’s Commission and was a partner in a bookstore.
This major planned gift pushes the college’s GC 20/20 Capital Campaign total to more than $19 million. The capital campaign was launched in February 2017 with a goal of $15 million, which was exceeded in December 2018. The campaign will continue until June 30, 2020. For more information about the campaign, contact Hurd at 336-272-7102, ext. 5743, or email anne.hurd@greensboro.edu.
Greensboro College provides a liberal arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and, spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.
Founded in 1838 and located in downtown Greensboro, the college enrolls about 1,000 students from 29 states and territories, the District of Columbia, and seven foreign countries in its undergraduate liberal-arts program and six master’s degree programs. In addition to rigorous academics and a well-supported Honors program, the school features a 17-sport NCAA Division III athletic program and dozens of service and recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.greensboro.edu.
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