Carna Scholarship
The Dow-Chase family's roots are in Carna, Galway County, Ireland. Her scholarship aims to make life in America easier for immigrants.
She’s convinced that education is “the path from poverty” and has witnessed its transformative role in her family and in students’ lives through many years of higher education work. Six of these were spent in the UMass Boston English Department advising students; twenty-six at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
When considering where to establish her scholarship, Dow-Chase considered places where she and her family had deeper ties: M.I.T., Boston College , and Northeastern University. But “giving to first-generation Americans makes my gift go farther,” says Dow-Chase. With over half of UMass Boston’s freshman from this background, she believes the university is a wise investment. She has named the scholarship for her family’s home village in Ireland.
William Preap, now twenty-five and a junior in the College of
Management says, “I know what it is like to live without an education, and it is really hard to move up in the world.” Thanks to Deirdre Dow-Chase’s sharing of her wealth, the Carna Scholarship will make a college education possible for many more William Oudam Preaps.
