WPI Journal - The Magazine for WPI Alumni

FALL 2014

The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)

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50 Fall 2014 news from HIGGINS HOUSE W hen Tom Newman '64 was weighing acceptances to universities like MIT, RPI, UConn, and WPI, it was WPI's personal touch that welcomed him most. Fifty years after graduation, that same warmth is a driving force behind Newman's extensive alumni efforts. Most recently, Newman and his wife, Bonnie, established the Tom and Bonnie Newman Endowed Scholarship for Entre- preneurship in WPI's School of Business to support students interested in entrepre- neurship and innovation. The frst scholar- ship will be awarded this academic year. "What transcends the 50 years is the people-oriented culture," says Newman of WPI's appeal. "WPI focuses frst on the people and cares about students in a num- ber of ways." Quite simply, Newman enjoys giving back to the school that offered him so much. This spring, his efforts earned him the Herbert F. Taylor Award for Distin- guished Service to WPI from the WPI Alum- ni Association. Despite the enormous changes over the past fve decades, Newman says the basic principles still ring true. "WPI is still a fairly small group of people with exciting paths ahead of them," he says. As a new student, Newman's strong con- nections with his Theta Chi fraternity brothers and his classmates opened the ten- der spot WPI continues to hold in his heart. "If you pick up the phone and call someone from the Class of 1964, it takes about 20 sec- onds for that relationship to be rekindled no matter how well you knew them," says Newman. "The bonds of WPI people are pretty tight." Those bonds give WPI a prominent place in Newman's life, much more so than Northeastern University, where he earned his engineering master's, or Babson College, where he earned his MBA. "The fraternity system was a nurturing system for me," he says, even laughingly recalling the bow ties, beanies, and name tags of Orientation. As house president for Theta Chi, he presided over 120 brothers whose close proximity and camaraderie, especially in pre-Campus Center days, forged friendships quickly. "I had no real authority, and it was like herd- ing cats," he says of his presidency, "but it Bow Ties and Beanies Herbert F. Taylor Award recipient says relationships are ties that bind

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