Framingham State secures its largest-ever donation

Photo | Courtesy Students sit on campus at Framingham State University.

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By Grant Welker

A Framingham State University faculty member and her husband have given the largest financial gift in the university's history, about $2.4 million.

The gift from Halcyon Mancuso Krebs and her husband, Thomas Krebs, will provide full-ride scholarships for students in the humanities and social sciences, the university announced Tuesday. Students will be eligible starting in the fall of 2019.

The Mancuso English, Humanities, and Social & Behavioral Sciences Scholarships, as they will be called, will support Framingham State students who demonstrate financial need. Two scholarships will be awarded each year: one for English, the subject that Mancuso Krebs teaches at the university, and another will rotate among 11 majors in the humanities and social sciences, such as history and political science.

"I have chosen to support academic majors that often do not get the financial support that they deserve,” Mancuso Krebs said in a statement. “More than ever, businesses and government so desperately need employees who have studied the humanities and social and behavioral sciences."

"Such employees possess the ability to think critically, abstractly, and with nuance and compassion for others and, therefore, are prepared to imaginatively confront the challenges of our diverse world," she said. "Their learning does not channel them into one narrow area but, rather, affords flexibility that their future careers will require."