Dr. Sandra M. Donaldson, BA '68

The Nielsen-Donaldson Women’s Scholarship was established in 2015 by Sandra M. Donaldson, BA ’68, to provide scholarships to female students in the UB College of Arts and Sciences in honor of the unheralded work of women exemplified by her mother, Margaret Nielsen Donaldson, and grandmothers, Tekla Gredsted Nielsen and Mary MacMillan Donaldson. Priority for the scholarship award is given to returning or interrupted students majoring in English or the liberal arts. Margaret Nielsen Donaldson’s daughters, Sandra Donaldson and Diane Donaldson Fox, followed in their forebears’ footsteps doing paid and unpaid work, from clerical to maternal, and are grateful for the good spirit and worthy work that their mother and grandmothers modeled and encouraged. Sandra Donaldson is also grateful for support many years ago from her employer, the New York Telephone Company, which allowed her to attend UB’s Milliard Fillmore College evenings to pursue an undergraduate degree in English. Academic success changed her life and fortunes. With this scholarship, she hopes to do the same for women students who are either employed full time or supporting a family, or both.