29 Over 3,000 loyal donors have made a gift every single year of GO. Representing alumni from the Class of 1942 all the way to parents of the Class of 2026, hailing from almost 50 states and countries, our consecutive year-after-year donors form the bedrock of giving at Lehigh. Campaign Donors by Class Decade Campaign Donors by Category ROY CRAVZOW ’61 TOWER SOCIETY DONOR Why do I give back? Planned gifts and charitable annuity vehicles also provide a meaningful way for our dedicated alumni to honor their Lehigh experience and make a difference for students in perpetuity. Lehigh changed Roy Cravzow ’61’s life. He took a Spanish class in his first year with a newly arrived romance languages professor, Victor Valenzuela, who became an advisor, mentor, and lifelong friend. At Valenzuela’s encouragement, Cravzow earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish at Lehigh. He also earned a master’s in Spanish and a certificate in Latin American studies from Columbia University. There he met another life-influencing professor, Gregory Rabassa, who would become his dissertation advisor as well as another dear friend. A switch in concentration to Portuguese, a doctorate in comparative literature (Portuguese) from City University of New York, and a Fulbright all led Cravzow to a career as an adjunct professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Queens College in New York from 1968 through 1989. Honoring the memory of the two professors who so influenced him led Cravzow to create his first charitable gift annuity in 2010. Subsequently, he established 13 gift annuities and has also made a generous bequest provision. Using the residuum of the annuities and his eventual bequest, a permanent endowment fund to be known as the Rabassa/Valenzuela Endowed Chair in Latin American Literature and Culture will be established. “It’s a win-win for everybody. When I found out about the charitable gift annuity program, I thought it was great,” Cravzow says. “The deciding factor was that, between the gift annuity program and a confirmed bequest, I could make a plan to fund an endowed chair at Lehigh. Without Lehigh and Professor Valenzuela, who led me to meet Professor Rabassa, I wouldn’t have enjoyed these lifelong relationships and the success I achieved in my two interrelated careers.”
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