Since her time as a young alumni trustee soon after graduating, Patti White, BA’76, has celebrated her connections to Vanderbilt through continuing service and philanthropy.
“My husband, George, and I like to support institutions that are doing good work, and Vanderbilt has always been at the forefront of bringing together diverse points of view while emphasizing the importance of civility with one another,” White says.
White calls the university’s long leadership in intellectual inquiry and diversity extraordinary, recalling pioneering steps made during the 1960s and ’70s: an event on campus featuring Stokely Carmichael and the recruitment of Perry Wallace as the first Black basketball player in the SEC. She sees living connections between that history and current programs like the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy.
The Whites recently combined this admiration with a desire to honor their children—Frances White, BA’11, and George A. White, BA’19—to fund the Black Box Theater in Rothschild College, a space intended to allow students from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to come together, create community and express their talents and viewpoints in a safe space.
“Theater creates a very special kind of community that is closer and tighter than many because [the participants] have to reveal so much of themselves on stage—there’s a real vulnerability there. Building community is one of the most important things we can do right now,” White says.
White’s familiarity with these theater communities is rooted in family experience. Her daughter, Frances, was a theatre major at Vanderbilt and worked in theater in London for several years after graduating.
White recently toured the new space.
“It is beautiful and perfectly designed, and it’s such a versatile space,” she says. “I hope it will become a vital part of the campus. It is important to have places where students can express their creativity.”
In addition to funding for the theater, the Whites have provided significant support for students through the Early-White International Scholarship, named for White’s father and her husband’s mother—also both Vanderbilt alumni.
White’s love for Vanderbilt began when she was a child, with a family visit to campus for her father’s class reunion. At that time, reunions were in the spring.
The time spent on campus must have similarly influenced the entire family. White’s younger brothers followed in her footsteps and studied at Vanderbilt, as did several members of the extended family, and the tradition continued with her children, Frances and George.
“Vanderbilt in May is just gorgeous, and having grown up in the panhandle of Texas, it seemed like an oasis,” White recalls. “That’s when I set my heart on going to Vanderbilt.”
—Connie Harris
