Giving to Barry University

Our Barry is made up of a collection of individual journeys, relationships, academic experiences. One of those paths belongs to you: Your mentors, your favorite study spots, your lifelong friendships, your moments of growth, your triumphs, and your challenges.

Your gifts honor your Barry experience—the faculty that mentored you, the friends you still call today, that feeling you get when you see pictures of campus each fall. Your gifts also honor and impact the experiences of current and future students.

Barry—and its future—belongs to all of us. Every success of the college. Every faculty member who is supported in their teaching and their creative approach to the classroom. Every graduate who walks the stage ready to make a difference in their profession, their community, their world.

Everything we do, we do together. Generations of donors have built Barry, making it stronger each year.

The truth is, Barry just wouldn’t be Barry without you.

The Barry Fund touches every aspect of a student’s life at Barry. It helps students in financial need. It helps faculty build new academic programs to respond to the world around us. It allows student clubs and organizations to meet their missions. It allows faculty, staff, and students to come together to develop new programs—like tutoring services and career support. And it also supports the day-to-day operations of the university, from keeping the lights and WiFi on in classrooms and residence halls to addressing surprise repairs like burst pipes from storm damage.

Here are some of the ways the University used money from the Barry Fund in the past year:

• Scholarships: All Barry undergraduates receive some form of aid. Increased support eases students’ financial burdens and frees them to focus on their studies.
• Student Experience: Barry provides a robust array of extracurricular activities including clubs, professional conferences, and community engagement opportunities.
• Faculty support: A strong and engaged faculty is critical to fulfilling our mission. Additional funds enable faculty to pursue new research, acquire innovative technologies, and learn the latest teaching methods, all of which help students lead full intellectual lives.

All students have unlimited potential, but many have limited financial means. In fact, 100 percent of incoming full-time freshmen receive some type of financial assistance from the University, including grants and scholarships, and many students are the first in their family to attend college.

We believe every student with the ambition and audacity to dream, deserves to see that dream realized.  Gifts from alumni and friends ensure that students not only are able to attend Barry, but also thrive here and build their own Barry experience, without the crushing burden of excessive debt.

Behind each endowed gift is a personal story, whether it be gratitude for a Barry education, to honor a loved one or a favorite professor, or to create a program that will make the world a better place.

These gifts are able to do so much good because they exist in perpetuity. The gift is invested, but the principal remains untouched and a percentage of the interest income is spent each year. In this way, they enable Barry to better plan for the future, adding stability as economic changes occur.

The majority of Barry’s current endowed funds support scholarships that both honor the donor’s experience and afford similar opportunities to the next generation.

Here are a  few of the endowments that are at work today—and the Barry experiences they honor.

• Steinberg Family Podiatric Medicine Endowed Scholarship supports a 3rd year student in the School of Medicine and created by the family of Dr. Lloyd Steinberg who was a 2nd generation podiatrist and whose sons John and Paul followed in his footsteps, receiving their podiatric medicine degrees in 1995 and 1993 respectively from the Barry University School of Podiatric Medicine.

• Judith A. Balcerski Endowed Nursing Scholarship was established in honor of Dr. Judith Balcerski who was part of the Barry community for 35 years both as a student and director of the nursing program. Dr. Balcerski asked that to be honored with a scholarship because she remembers the sacrifices students made like checking their textbooks out of the library and living without much furniture in order to attend school and improve life for their families.
• The Cesar Odio Memorial Endowed Scholarship honors Barry’s winningest basketball coach. Odio was his county’s leading scorer in high school and the captain of a victorious national championship team at Florida Southern College. “He liked having an impact on young people,” says his wife, Mary Kay Odio. “He devoted his life to Barry.” Donations came from friends, alumni, and even coaches Odio competed against. Emily Odio-Sutton, Cesar’s daughter, says, “Our hope is that the scholarship will continue my dad’s legacy and the student-athletes will have a positive impact at Barry and beyond.”

When you include Barry University in your estate plan, your legacy lives on in the students who will benefit from your generosity. And knowing that these students have received a Barry education and core principles that helped define your life, means you can continue to inspire positive change in the local and global community well into the future.

Here are some ways you can impact the next generation:

• Gift of cash
• Appreciated securities
• Donor advised fund
• Gift in your will or living trust
• Charitable gift annuity
• Beneficiary designations

Our Barry is made up of exceptional student-athletes. Together, we have won 22 national championships, and more than 440 of student-athletes have been Scholar All-Americans. For the last seven years, Barry has received the NCAA President’s Award for Academic Excellence for a graduation rate of 90 percent or better.

Each year, more than 200 student-athletes give their all in 13 sports. Through contributions to the Buc Club, members fund scholarships, facility enhancements and individual team needs, as well as operational needs for the Intercollegiate Athletics Department.