Generosity Through the Decades
A new gift strengthens the Lipinsky legacy.
In the 1990s, Bernard and Dorris Lipinsky endowed the Thomas B. Day Student Success programs. They and their children have also given to the Jewish studies and musical theatre programs, while scholarship support from the Lipinskys has enabled hundreds of students to attend SDSU’s College of Arts and Letters.
Jeffrey and Sheila Lipinsky added to the family’s legacy of giving in 2013 with new support for research and graduate studies in the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences.
The gift is particularly meaningful for Sheila, who taught deaf and hard-of-hearing students for 12 years in the Chula Vista School District and later served as an educational therapist for students with learning differences.
She was impressed by SDSU’s Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience and director Karen Emmorey’s work examining what sign languages reveal about the nature of human language, cognition and the brain.
“Visiting Professor Karen Emmorey’s lab and meeting her research students — both hearing and deaf — was a huge factor for us,” said Sheila. “Their work supports SDSU’s growing reputation as a leading research university.”
The Lipinskys are graduates of SDSU—he from the College of Business Administration and she with a graduate degree from the College of Health and Human Services, where she studied with legendary professors Sue Earnest and Harriet Kopp.
Both are also winners of the Monty Award for Outstanding Alumni Contributions and Jeffrey’s father, Bernard, was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from SDSU in 1996.
“Philanthropy has always been important to both of us,” Jeffrey said. “That’s the way we were raised. We know that for some students, scholarships make the difference in their ability to afford a college education.”
