Becker receives $1M gift to spark innovation
Becker College has received a $1 million gift from alumna and former Southwest Airlines President Colleen Barrett that will go toward the school’s Center for Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
The donation is the largest from any individual donor in the history of the Worcester school, and the center will be named after the 1964 graduate, according to a statement from Becker. The Center for Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CGIE) will serve as the focal point for the school’s ongoing focus on innovation, according to officials, and host summer programs, workshops and boot camps. It will house the school’s Women in Leadership Program, designed to develop both female and male entrepreneurial leaders, and a New Ventures Center, which will serve as an incubator space to student-launched startups that develop video games, apps and other technologies.
“We are honored to name our new center after such a celebrated alumna, one who continually inspires us as we educate young people for jobs that do not yet exist, and to solve problems we have yet to identify,” Becker President Robert Johnson said in a statement.
Barrett began working at Southwest in 1978 and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the first female president of a major airline in the United States in 2001. She was also a member of the company’s board during her time as president, which ran through 2008.
“The new center will not only serve as a model for success for other higher education institutions, but will also provide students with the knowledge they need to successfully navigate whatever lies ahead, so they can change the world for the better,” Barrett said.
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