This October, the Board of Visitors at the College of Liberal Arts will welcome Fritzi James to its ranks. Though she may be a newcomer to the role, she and her family have already left their mark on Temple.
James, who grew up in Bucks County and considers Philadelphia the cultural center of her family, first became connected to Temple through her family’s philanthropy. Although no one in her family attended Temple, her father, Stan James, identified the university as a natural place to invest in education.
“Temple is one of the most influential colleges in Philadelphia,” she explains. “And it’s an accessible school—you constantly meet people who went to Temple, or who are connected to it in some way. When you do something that impacts Temple, you impact the greater Philadelphia area.”
It’s safe to say that impact is felt by a number of students at the CLA. Over the past few years, James and her family have seeded a matching gift fund that has gone on to endow nine Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards, or LAURAs. Each LAURA provides a $2,000 stipend to an undergraduate student-faculty member duo conducting a research project over the course of a semester.
“We wanted to do something that would help liberal arts programs, and also put money directly in the hands of students,” says James. “I’ve gotten to talk to some of the LAURA scholars—some of them are the first in their family to go to college, and now they’re thinking about PhDs. I’d like to think that’s partly because the experience of doing undergraduate research opened doors for them.”
James knows firsthand how valuable a liberal arts education can be. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, where she majored in English Literature and German, James’ life and work are steeped in a love for language and storytelling. She’s currently at work on a novel and is an avid language learner. She’s a fluent German speaker, knows her way around Spanish and Norwegian, and for the past two years, has been studying Russian—she’s tutored by CLA’s own Olia Propenko. Learning a new language, she says, feels like discovering "a secret world that you've seen from afar for your whole life.”
Ultimately, James was drawn to this opportunity with the Board of Visitors by her own passion for learning in the liberal arts, and she hopes it allows her to continue carving out greater opportunities for CLA students.
“I feel strongly that things like foreign language and creative pursuits in the liberal arts are extremely valuable, and that a liberal arts education develops people who contribute so positively to society,” she says, “and I look forward to being able to advocate for that.