Susan Katz Hoffman ’70 Makes IRA Rollover Gifts to Further Support Her Endowed Scholarship

Susan Katz Hoffman, ’70, had never been west of New Jersey when she set out for Lake Forest in 1966. Even though her high school counselor encouraged her to apply to the Ivy Leagues or MIT, Susan wanted a small, Midwestern school that was good at math and science—and where she could receive a full scholarship. She chose Lake Forest for its proximity to Chicago. She went on to earn her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and enjoyed a successful career as an attorney specializing in employee benefits.

“I’ve felt for a long time that my entire professional success really rests on Lake Forest College,” Susan says, “because when I arrived in 1966, I had a terrible stammer—and I couldn’t write a coherent paragraph. By the time I graduated, I could write and I could speak. That’s really all I needed for the rest of my career.”

In 2016 Susan established the Susan Katz Hoffman ’70 Endowed Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a full-time female student with demonstrated financial need. Now she directs her annual IRA required minimum distributions to further support the scholarship. “It’s a terrific tax advantage to do it that way,” she says, “and it doesn’t hit your income tax at all. I went to Lake Forest College on scholarship because my dad was an out-of-work truck driver, and I feel like I’m just returning the investment that the College made in me.”

As a student, Susan was active in Baha’I and fondly remembers creating “Baha’i Bikes” based on a project they heard about from Denmark. “We went to the police and bought all of their abandoned bikes and sort of cannibalized them to create six usable bikes,” she says. “We painted them neon yellow and scattered them around campus with signs reading ‘use the bike, don’t put a lock on it.’ I also became a food activist and ended up being chairman of the first Food Committee that approved the menus and met with the food service to try to make the food edible. We more or less succeeded.”

During her senior year, Susan represented the economics department at a teach-in held on the first-ever Earth Day where each presenter spoke about an aspect of ecology. After a series of speeches, Susan said to Economics Professor Rosemary Hale that she was surprised that so many of her smart fellow speakers could not put together a coherent speech. “They had the content, but they couldn’t deliver it very well,” she says. Professor Hale replied: “You probably didn’t realize this, but the economics department has a policy where each class assigns at least three papers and two oral presentations; so by your senior year, you know how to write and you know how to speak.”

Susan was invited to attend an Alumni Career Forum, “which was fun,” she says. “I’ve gone to a bunch of alumni events wherever I’ve been living. I’ve steered a few of my friends’ kids there as well. And, of course, I donate.” She says for her first big gift, “I just wrote a check. Rich Bartolozzi was meeting with me because I was giving a small gift every year, and he said, ‘you know, if you gave five years at once, you would have enough for a scholarship.’ I said ‘Really? I could do that!’ So that’s how it happened!”

Looking to the future, Susan has chosen to add to her scholarship endowment through a generous bequest to the College in her will.

Susan hopes her gift will help other girls from “not rich backgrounds, like I was, to have the opportunity to entirely change their lives the way that Lake Forest has changed my life,” she concludes. “Think about where your life would be without Lake Forest, and then write the check.”