The College of William and Mary received a $3 million donation from the estate of alumna Margaret Baxter Vaughan ’76. Of the donation, $500,000 will go toward the Earl Gregg Swem Library. The remaining two and a half million dollars have been donated to the College as unrestricted funds.
“William & Mary is so very grateful for this marvelous gift,” College President Taylor Reveley said in a press release. “I believe Margaret had a fondness for libraries generally and for Swem in particular. She understood how vitally important libraries are to a healthy society and to excellent schools. It is especially fitting that a portion of her gift will help sustain Swem. Margaret and her generosity to William & Mary will be long remembered at her alma mater.”
Swem has renamed the Read and Relax area of the first floor to the Margaret Baxter Vaughan Read and Relax room in her honor. The area now features new massage chairs and a classroom set-up that can be used for student and faculty programming. The library’s book collection will be moved to the Read and Relax room. Additionally, the Vaughan’s donation will go towards renovations for Swem’s media center.
“The project, which will begin next month, will transform roughly 11,000 square feet on the library’s ground floor and provide improvements to an already popular space at William and Mary,” Associate Director of Strategic Communications and Outreach Tami Back said. “The renovation includes the addition of a digital media lab with enhanced hardware and software for multimedia work, two new classrooms, an interview/production studio and work space for Swem staff.”
Vaughan, who passed away on Oct. 19, 2010, majored in economics and philosophy and was a member of the Beta Lambda chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority while at the College.