Old World, New Support

A grassroots fundraising campaign to support the Centre for Medieval Studies at U of T has proven more successful than anticipated – and the reason may lie in the scholarship’s name, says Prof. David Klausner.

Klausner, the director of the centre, launched the A.G. Rigg/Ontario Graduate Scholarship Campaign in 2001. It has raised $70,000, far surpassing its $50,000 goal. The scholarship was named after popular faculty member George Rigg, the university’s standard-bearer in medieval Latin. Rigg officially retired last spring, but is still teaching and involved in the centre’s editing and Latin programs. Klausner says Rigg’s popularity – he once hosted a Latin Scrabble tournament – accounts for the campaign’s success. “We set the scholarship up as a retirement present for George,” he says. “That’s really what made it work. Almost everyone who graduated from the centre over the past 35 years has had George as a teacher of medieval Latin. Everybody has fond memories of him.”

Thanks to the fundraising campaign, Klausner adds, “We are now in touch with alumni whom we hadn’t heard from in 20 or 30 years.”